Blame It on the Bellboy
Encyclopedia
Blame It on the Bellboy is a 1992 film comedy written and directed by Mark Herman
, revolving around a case of mistaken identity of three individuals with similar sounding surnames staying at the same hotel. Dudley Moore
stars.
The Bollywood film One Two Three
is an uncredited remake of Blame It On The Bellboy.
: Melvyn Orton, a shy and unassuming clerk with an assignment of purchasing a house in Venice under penalty of losing his job; Mike Lawton, a hitman
en route to Venice to kill his next mark, and Lord Maurice Horton, a rather large man who is mayor of a small city in the United Kingdom
.
All register in the Hotel Gabrielli. The first to check in is Maurice. He establishes that his name is Horton with an overeager bellboy who struggles with properly pronouncing the letter "H". Melvyn arrives next. He is checked in by the hotel's manager, who initially believes that he and Mr. Horton are the same person until Melvyn clarifies the spelling of his name. Third to arrive is Mike Lawton. They are all expecting messages: Melvyn from a real estate agency that is selling a worthless villa in the Lido, Mike from the Mafia
and Maurice from a dating agency called Medi-Date. When the bellboy receives the message for Melvyn, he mistakenly delivers it to Maurice. The message from Medi-Date goes instead to Mike, who now believes that his "mark" is the woman Maurice was supposed to meet with. Melvyn, meanwhile, receives Mike's instructions to 'visit' a local mob boss.
Maurice is shown around the villa by Caroline Wright, who has received instructions to sell the house immediately. If she gets the money in cash, her commission will be tripled, allowing her to purchase a speed boat). Maurice is under the false impression that they are on a date, planning to have sex with her, but is baffled by the fact that she seems very intent (supported by double entendre
) to get to "the nitty gritty."
Mike is following Paticia (who was supposed to be Maurice's date) around Venice, trying to find the courage to kill her, since he is having second thoughts about his chosen profession. Melvyn calls seeking Mr. Scarpa, a mafioso who knows he is being sought by a killer, and is detained by thugs, taken to a cellar and tortured.
Maurice takes Caroline out for lunch, and Patricia has noticed Mike following her around and engages him in conversation. Mike is unsure of what to make of this, since he believes he is there to kill Patricia and she believes he is trying to go on a date with her. Melvyn is permitted to call his boss in England, trying to prove his story that he is there to buy Mr. Scarpa's extravagant house rather than kill him. While Scarpa and his men listen, Marshall thunders abuse at Melvyn and hangs up. Scarpa remarks that Melvyn is living life like a worm, letting his boss insult him so freely, but is still convinced he and this "Mr. Marshall" want Scarpa dead. The interrogation resumes, with Scarpa's men preparing to use electricity on Melvyn's genitals, but he remembers a man at his hotel- Maurice- with a similar last name. Scarpa and his men, now suspecting Maurice as the assassin, head to the hotel and take Melvyn with them.
Maurice has tried to make a move on Caroline, who is offended, both still mistaking other's agenda. His belief that she is a prostitute is compounded by her confusion that he would pay cash for the villa if she agrees to have sex with him.
Mike is about to kill Patricia but stops at the last minute. Everyone returns to the hotel: Maurice and Caroline to have sex, Mike to figure out what to do with Patricia, and Melvyn to check out and run for his life.
Melvyn is trapped again by the mafiosi and led upstairs to a new room. Mike and Patricia have clarified that she is not his mark and that Medi-Date is a legitimate company, not a cover. Maurice, after having sex with Caroline, informs her he isn't going to buy the villa, since he lives in England and has little use for a home in Venice. Melvyn is being tortured again when the bellboy comes in, escorting Mrs. Horton, who is irritated to discover she's been led to the wrong room.
Caroline is in Maurice's bathroom, considering the possibility that Maurice may very well cheat her out of the money he'd promised when the bellboy brings Mrs. Horton in. She has become suspicious that Maurice is cheating on her, and after speaking with his secretary became certain Maurice was going to Venice to meet another woman. Caroline uses this as a chance to blackmail Maurice, implying that if he pays one hundred thousand pounds, in cash, she will keep their tryst
secret.
Maurice calls his bank manager in the UK to have the money transferred to him in Venice, a conversation overheard by Mike and the mafiosi. Mike and Patricia assume that Maurice has killed the mark and received the money, since one hundred thousand pounds was Mike's fee. The mafiosi have decided to kill Mr. Horton and Mr. Orton, convinced the former is a cleverly disguised assassin and that the latter knows too much. They obtain a remotely-detonated bomb, intending to make use of it later.
Maurice receives the money, places it in a briefcase, and leaves it in the hotel safe. The mafiosi get a matching briefcase in which they hide the bomb, and upon placing it in the hotel safe swap tags on the two identical briefcases. Maurice takes his briefcase and leaves for the villa with Mike and the mafiosi in pursuit. Mike and Patricia try to steal the suitcase and a struggle ensues between them, the Hortons, and Caroline over the money. Melvyn, sitting in a raft offshore, is ordered to set off the bomb by an impatient Mr. Scarpa, whose boat is sitting further offshore, unable to get any closer. As Melvyn tries to comply, one of Scarpa's henchmen realizes a horrifying mistake- he and another of Scarpa's men both swapped the tags on the briefcases. Realizing the bomb is on the boat, Scarpa screams at his men to throw the briefcase overboard and begins firing at Melvyn with a pistol. Scarpa is trying to stop him from setting off the bomb, but Melvyn assumes the Mafiosi have become impatient and are telling him to hurry up. The detonator finally works, and Scarpa's boat explodes and sinks.
Mike retreats to the Hotel Gabrielli in a panic. The organization he works for doesn't forgive mistakes, and given what has happened he now fears for his life. When the bellboy knocks on the door, Mike grabs him and holds him at gunpoint while Patricia reads the message from Mike's employer: since his mark (actually Mr. Scarpa) and two of his top men were killed, he has been paid a generous bonus in addition to his original fee.
Melvyn calls Mr. Marshall and tricks him out of £355,000.00, the price for Mr. Scarpa's house in Venice. Melvyn takes the money and runs for the Bahamas, where he sets up a sporting goods business specialising in testicle protectors. Mr. Marshall arrives at Scarpa's house sometime later, and Mr. Scarpa's men avenge their boss.
Caroline finally gets the speedboat she has long dreamed of owning, but it crashes due to faulty engineering and she cheerfully sues the boat's maker for all the money she can get. She later marries a sumo
wrestler. The Hortons' villa falls apart and so does their marriage. The former Mrs. Horton soon finds a new and better husband, while Maurice is still looking for love when the film ends. Mike and Patricia, having become very fond of each other in their time in Venice, decide to marry. Mike finally ends his career as an assassin, opening up a flower shop as he had long desired to do. Patricia goes on to represent England in the Olympics, having become exceptionally skilled with short-barrel firearms.
Mark Herman
Mark Herman is an English film director and screenwriter best known for writing & directing the 2008 film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas....
, revolving around a case of mistaken identity of three individuals with similar sounding surnames staying at the same hotel. Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...
stars.
The Bollywood film One Two Three
One Two Three (2008 film)
One Two Three is a 2008 Bollywood film and it is an uncredited remake of the Hollywood movie Blame it on the Bellboy which is about three men staying in the same hotel and have similar sounding surnames. One Two Three stars Tushar Kapoor, Paresh Rawal, Suniel Shetty, Esha Deol, Sameera Reddy, Upen...
is an uncredited remake of Blame It On The Bellboy.
Cast
| Actor Actor An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity... |
Character |
|---|---|
| Dudley Moore Dudley Moore Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television... |
Melvyn Orton |
| Bryan Brown Bryan Brown Bryan Neathway Brown, AM is an Australian actor.-Early life:Brown was born in Sydney, the son of John Brown and Molly Brown, a house cleaner who worked as a pianist in the early days of the Langshaw School of Ballet. He grew up in the south-western Sydney suburb of Bankstown and began working at... |
Mike Lawton (Charlton Black) |
| Richard Griffiths Richard Griffiths Richard Griffiths, OBE is an English actor of stage, film and television. He has received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actor and a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor... |
Maurice Horton |
| Andreas Katsulas Andreas Katsulas Andrew "Andreas" Katsulas was a Greek-American actor known for his roles as Ambassador G'Kar in the science fiction television series Babylon 5, as the one-armed villain Sykes in the film The Fugitive , and as the Romulan Commander Tomalak on Star Trek: The Next Generation... |
Mr. Scarpa |
| Patsy Kensit Patsy Kensit Patricia Jude Francis "Patsy" Kensit is an English actress, singer, model and former child star, known for her television and film appearances. Her films include Lethal Weapon 2 and she has been married to rock stars Jim Kerr and Liam Gallagher, as well as herself fronting the band Eighth Wonder... |
Caroline Wright |
| Alison Steadman Alison Steadman Alison Steadman OBE is an English actress. She established her career with roles such as Beverley in Abigail's Party and Candice Marie in Nuts in May for the director Mike Leigh, to whom she was once married. In addition to her stage and radio work, she has had lead roles in The Singing Detective,... |
Rosemary Horton |
| Penelope Wilton Penelope Wilton Penelope Alice Wilton, OBE is an English actress.-Life and career:Penelope Alice Wilton was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, to a former actress mother and a businessman father. She is a niece of actors Bill Travers and Linden Travers and a cousin of the actor Richard Morant... |
Patricia Fulford |
| Bronson Pinchot Bronson Pinchot Bronson Alcott Pinchot is an American actor. He has appeared in several feature films, including Risky Business, Beverly Hills Cop , The First Wives Club, True Romance, Courage Under Fire and It's My Party... |
Bellboy |
| Jim Carter | Rossi, a thug |
| Alex Norton Alex Norton Alexander Hugh "Alex" Norton is a Scottish actor. He is probably best known for his roles as DCI Matt Burke in Taggart, and Eddie in the Renford Rejects.... |
Alfio, another thug |
| John Grillo John Grillo John Grillo is a British actor and playwright who has appeared in many film and television productions.... |
Hotel Manager |
| Andrew Bailey | shady character |
| Ronnie Stevens Ronnie Stevens (actor) Ronald Stevens was a London-born English actor known as Ronnie Stevens.He appeared in many television comedy series in regular roles, including May to December, Goodnight Sweetheart and A J Wentworth, BA. He also appeared as the "Minister of Pollution", in The Goodies pollution episode... |
Man on plane |
| Enzo Turrin | Senior Policeman |
| Andy Bradford | Italian victim |
| Lindsay Anderson Lindsay Anderson Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave... |
Mr. Marshall (voice) |
Plot
Three men board the same plane at Heathrow Airport bound for VeniceVenice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
: Melvyn Orton, a shy and unassuming clerk with an assignment of purchasing a house in Venice under penalty of losing his job; Mike Lawton, a hitman
Hitman
A hitman is a person hired to kill another person.- Hitmen in organized crime :Hitmen are largely linked to the world of organized crime. Hitmen are hired people who kill people for money. Notable examples include Murder, Inc., Mafia hitmen and Richard Kuklinski.- Other cases involving hitmen...
en route to Venice to kill his next mark, and Lord Maurice Horton, a rather large man who is mayor of a small city in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
All register in the Hotel Gabrielli. The first to check in is Maurice. He establishes that his name is Horton with an overeager bellboy who struggles with properly pronouncing the letter "H". Melvyn arrives next. He is checked in by the hotel's manager, who initially believes that he and Mr. Horton are the same person until Melvyn clarifies the spelling of his name. Third to arrive is Mike Lawton. They are all expecting messages: Melvyn from a real estate agency that is selling a worthless villa in the Lido, Mike from the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
and Maurice from a dating agency called Medi-Date. When the bellboy receives the message for Melvyn, he mistakenly delivers it to Maurice. The message from Medi-Date goes instead to Mike, who now believes that his "mark" is the woman Maurice was supposed to meet with. Melvyn, meanwhile, receives Mike's instructions to 'visit' a local mob boss.
Maurice is shown around the villa by Caroline Wright, who has received instructions to sell the house immediately. If she gets the money in cash, her commission will be tripled, allowing her to purchase a speed boat). Maurice is under the false impression that they are on a date, planning to have sex with her, but is baffled by the fact that she seems very intent (supported by double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
) to get to "the nitty gritty."
Mike is following Paticia (who was supposed to be Maurice's date) around Venice, trying to find the courage to kill her, since he is having second thoughts about his chosen profession. Melvyn calls seeking Mr. Scarpa, a mafioso who knows he is being sought by a killer, and is detained by thugs, taken to a cellar and tortured.
Maurice has tried to make a move on Caroline, who is offended, both still mistaking other's agenda. His belief that she is a prostitute is compounded by her confusion that he would pay cash for the villa if she agrees to have sex with him.
Mike is about to kill Patricia but stops at the last minute. Everyone returns to the hotel: Maurice and Caroline to have sex, Mike to figure out what to do with Patricia, and Melvyn to check out and run for his life.
Melvyn is trapped again by the mafiosi and led upstairs to a new room. Mike and Patricia have clarified that she is not his mark and that Medi-Date is a legitimate company, not a cover. Maurice, after having sex with Caroline, informs her he isn't going to buy the villa, since he lives in England and has little use for a home in Venice. Melvyn is being tortured again when the bellboy comes in, escorting Mrs. Horton, who is irritated to discover she's been led to the wrong room.
Caroline is in Maurice's bathroom, considering the possibility that Maurice may very well cheat her out of the money he'd promised when the bellboy brings Mrs. Horton in. She has become suspicious that Maurice is cheating on her, and after speaking with his secretary became certain Maurice was going to Venice to meet another woman. Caroline uses this as a chance to blackmail Maurice, implying that if he pays one hundred thousand pounds, in cash, she will keep their tryst
Tryst
Tryst may refer to:*A meeting of two lovers, as in courtship*Tryst , a book by Elswyth Thane*Tryst , a play by Karoline Leach*A nightclub at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel...
secret.
Maurice calls his bank manager in the UK to have the money transferred to him in Venice, a conversation overheard by Mike and the mafiosi. Mike and Patricia assume that Maurice has killed the mark and received the money, since one hundred thousand pounds was Mike's fee. The mafiosi have decided to kill Mr. Horton and Mr. Orton, convinced the former is a cleverly disguised assassin and that the latter knows too much. They obtain a remotely-detonated bomb, intending to make use of it later.
Maurice receives the money, places it in a briefcase, and leaves it in the hotel safe. The mafiosi get a matching briefcase in which they hide the bomb, and upon placing it in the hotel safe swap tags on the two identical briefcases. Maurice takes his briefcase and leaves for the villa with Mike and the mafiosi in pursuit. Mike and Patricia try to steal the suitcase and a struggle ensues between them, the Hortons, and Caroline over the money. Melvyn, sitting in a raft offshore, is ordered to set off the bomb by an impatient Mr. Scarpa, whose boat is sitting further offshore, unable to get any closer. As Melvyn tries to comply, one of Scarpa's henchmen realizes a horrifying mistake- he and another of Scarpa's men both swapped the tags on the briefcases. Realizing the bomb is on the boat, Scarpa screams at his men to throw the briefcase overboard and begins firing at Melvyn with a pistol. Scarpa is trying to stop him from setting off the bomb, but Melvyn assumes the Mafiosi have become impatient and are telling him to hurry up. The detonator finally works, and Scarpa's boat explodes and sinks.
Melvyn calls Mr. Marshall and tricks him out of £355,000.00, the price for Mr. Scarpa's house in Venice. Melvyn takes the money and runs for the Bahamas, where he sets up a sporting goods business specialising in testicle protectors. Mr. Marshall arrives at Scarpa's house sometime later, and Mr. Scarpa's men avenge their boss.
Caroline finally gets the speedboat she has long dreamed of owning, but it crashes due to faulty engineering and she cheerfully sues the boat's maker for all the money she can get. She later marries a sumo
Sumo
is a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...
wrestler. The Hortons' villa falls apart and so does their marriage. The former Mrs. Horton soon finds a new and better husband, while Maurice is still looking for love when the film ends. Mike and Patricia, having become very fond of each other in their time in Venice, decide to marry. Mike finally ends his career as an assassin, opening up a flower shop as he had long desired to do. Patricia goes on to represent England in the Olympics, having become exceptionally skilled with short-barrel firearms.