The Wrong Arm of the Law
Encyclopedia
The Wrong Arm of the Law is a 1963
1963 in film
The year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....

  British comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 directed by Cliff Owen
Cliff Owen
Cliff Owen, was a British film and TV director best known for his comedy The Wrong Arm of the Law which starred Peter Sellers; he also directed two of the three films celebrated double act Morecambe and Wise made in the mid 1960s, and the big screen version of the classic BBC sitcom Steptoe and...

 and starring Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...

, Bernard Cribbins
Bernard Cribbins
Bernard Cribbins, OBE is an English character actor, voice-over artist and musical comedian with a career spanning over half a century who came to prominence in films in the 1960s, has been in work consistently since his professional debut in the mid 1950s, and as of 2010 is still an active...

, Lionel Jeffries
Lionel Jeffries
Lionel Charles Jeffries was an English actor, screenwriter and film director.-Early life and career:Jeffries attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. In 1945, he received a commission in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry...

, John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier was a BAFTA Award-winning English actor. He is most famous for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the popular 1970s BBC comedy Dad's Army.-Career:...

 and Bill Kerr
Bill Kerr
William 'Bill' Kerr is an Australian film and television actor. He was born into a performing arts family in Cape Town, South Africa, but grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia....

. It was written in part by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson
Galton and Simpson
Ray Galton OBE , and Alan Simpson OBE , are British scriptwriters who met in 1948 at a tuberculosis sanatorium, the Surrey county sanatorium near Godalming, on which the sitcom Get Well Soon was based...

 and made by British Lion Films
British Lion Films
British Lion Films Corporation is a film production and distribution company active under several forms since 1919. Until 1976 they were also film distributors as British Lion Films Ltd, with a distributor filmography of 232 films. As a production company they are still active and have produced...

.

Plot

In London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, a gang of criminals from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 led by Jack Coombes (Bill Kerr
Bill Kerr
William 'Bill' Kerr is an Australian film and television actor. He was born into a performing arts family in Cape Town, South Africa, but grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia....

) impersonate policemen to carry out robberies. Local gang leader "Pearly" Gates (Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...

), who operates from the cover of a French couturier
Couturier
A couturier is an establishment or person involved in the clothing fashion industry who makes original garments to order for private clients. A couturier may make what is known as haute couture. Such a person usually hires patternmakers and machinists for garment production, and is either employed...

, finds his takings cut severely, and blames rival crook "Nervous" O'Toole (Bernard Cribbins
Bernard Cribbins
Bernard Cribbins, OBE is an English character actor, voice-over artist and musical comedian with a career spanning over half a century who came to prominence in films in the 1960s, has been in work consistently since his professional debut in the mid 1950s, and as of 2010 is still an active...

). When it emerges that they are both being scammed by the same gang, they join forces, along with Lionel Jeffries
Lionel Jeffries
Lionel Charles Jeffries was an English actor, screenwriter and film director.-Early life and career:Jeffries attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. In 1945, he received a commission in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry...

' Police Inspector "Nosey" Parker, to bring the so-called "I.P.O. mob" (I.P.O. - Impersonation of a Police Officer) to justice. Nanette Newman
Nanette Newman
-Early life:Newman was born in Northampton, England. She was educated at Sternhold College, the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts stage school and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.-Career:...

 provides the love interest, the ubiquitous John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier was a BAFTA Award-winning English actor. He is most famous for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the popular 1970s BBC comedy Dad's Army.-Career:...

 plays a senior policeman, and a young Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....

 has a small and uncredited role as a young PC. Other uncredited roles include John Junkin
John Junkin
John Francis Junkin was an English radio, television and film performer and scriptwriter.In 1960 Junkin joined Joan Littlewood's Stratford East Theatre Workshop, and played the lead in the original production of Sparrows Can't Sing...

 (Maurice), Dennis Price
Dennis Price
Dennis Price was an English actor, remembered for his suave screen roles, particularly Louis Mazzini in Kind Hearts and Coronets, and for his portrayal of the omniscient valet Jeeves in 1960s television adaptations of P. G...

 (Educated Ernest), Cardew Robinson
Cardew Robinson
Douglas John Cardew Robinson was a British comic, whose craft was rooted in the music hall and Gang Shows.-Early life and career:Robinson was educated at Harrow County School for Boys...

 (Mailman), Dick Emery
Dick Emery
Richard Gilbert "Dick" Emery was an English comedian and actor. Beginning on radio in the 1950s, an eponymous television series ran from 1963 to 1981. He was the brother of Ann Emery.-Life and career:...

 (Man in Flat 307), Mario Fabrizi
Mario Fabrizi
Mario Fabrizi was an English comedian and actor of Italian descent active in Britain in the 1950s and early 1960s....

 (Van Driver), John Harvey
John Harvey
-People:*John Harvey , English stage and film actor*John Harvey , American actor*John Harvey , Retired National Football League running back...

 (Police Station Sergeant), Harold Siddons
Harold Siddons
Harold Siddons was a British film and television actor, appearing in Genevieve, The Dam Busters, Appointment in London, They Who Dare, The Purple Plain, Quatermass and the Pit, A Night To Remember and The Wrong Arm of the Law...

 (PC in Basement Garage), Jack Silk (Police Station PC), Derek Guyler (non-speaking PC at Scotland Yard), Gerald Sim
Gerald Sim
Gerald Grant Sim is an English actor who is perhaps best known for playing the Rector in To the Manor Born. He is the younger brother of actress Sheila Sim and brother-in-law of actor/director Lord Attenborough.- Career :...

 (Airfield Official) and Marianne Stone
Marianne Stone
Marianne Stone was a British character actress. She appeared in many films from the early 1940s to the late 1980s...

 (Woman in Front Row at Gangsters' Meeting).

Cast

  • Peter Sellers
    Peter Sellers
    Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...

     as Pearly Gates
  • Lionel Jeffries
    Lionel Jeffries
    Lionel Charles Jeffries was an English actor, screenwriter and film director.-Early life and career:Jeffries attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. In 1945, he received a commission in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry...

     as Inspector Parker
  • Bernard Cribbins
    Bernard Cribbins
    Bernard Cribbins, OBE is an English character actor, voice-over artist and musical comedian with a career spanning over half a century who came to prominence in films in the 1960s, has been in work consistently since his professional debut in the mid 1950s, and as of 2010 is still an active...

     as Nervous O'Toole
  • Davy Kaye
    Davy Kaye
    Davy Kaye MBE , born as David Kodeish, was a British comedy actor and entertainer.-Early life:...

     as Trainer King
  • Nanette Newman
    Nanette Newman
    -Early life:Newman was born in Northampton, England. She was educated at Sternhold College, the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts stage school and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.-Career:...

     as Valerie
  • Bill Kerr
    Bill Kerr
    William 'Bill' Kerr is an Australian film and television actor. He was born into a performing arts family in Cape Town, South Africa, but grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia....

     as Jack Coombes
  • Ed Devereaux
    Ed Devereaux
    Ed Devereaux was an Australian actor, who lived in the UK for many years. He was best known for playing the part of "Matt Hammond" in the Australian children's television series Skippy. He was also involved in the series behind the scenes: Devereaux directed The Veteran , for which he received...

     as Bluey May
  • Reg Lye as Reg Denton
  • John Le Mesurier
    John Le Mesurier
    John Le Mesurier was a BAFTA Award-winning English actor. He is most famous for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the popular 1970s BBC comedy Dad's Army.-Career:...

     as Assistant Commissioner
  • Graham Stark
    Graham Stark
    Graham Stark is an English comedian, actor, writer and director.Stark was born in Wallasey on the Wirral in Cheshire, England. He first came to prominence on BBC Radio, making his debut in Happy Go Lucky and going on to Ray's A Laugh, Educating Archie and substitute on The Goon Show...

     as Sid Cooper
  • Martin Boddey
    Martin Boddey
    Martin Boddey was a British film and television actor.He was a founder member of the Lord's Taverners charity.-Selected filmography:* The Twenty Questions Murder Mystery * Cairo Road...

     as Superintendent Forest
  • Irene Browne
    Irene Browne
    Irene Browne was an English stage and film actress and singer who appeared in plays and musicals such as No, No, Nanette. Later in her career, she became particularly associated with the works of Noel Coward and acted in films....

     as Dowager
  • Arthur Mullard
    Arthur Mullard
    Arthur Ernest Mullard, original surname Mullord was an English comedy actor.- Early life :...

     as Brassknuckles
  • Dermot Kelly as Misery Martin
  • Vanda Godsell
    Vanda Godsell
    Vanda Godsell was an English actress.-Early life:She was born near Bristol into the well known Godsell family, best known for its brewery based in Stroud. Her father was an officer in the Navy and served in the Battle of Jutland whilst her mother, Muriel, was the sister of novelist and actress...

     as Annette
  • Tutte Lemkow
    Tutte Lemkow
    Tutte Lemkow was a Norwegian actor and dancer, who played mostly villainous roles in British television and films. His chief claims to mainstream familiarity were his roles as "the fiddler" in the film version of Fiddler on the Roof and the old man who translates for Indiana Jones in Raiders of...

     as Siggy Schmoltz

Production

Many of the robbery scenes were filmed around Uxbridge Moor
Uxbridge
Uxbridge is a large town located in north west London, England and is the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Hillingdon. It forms part of the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is located west-northwest of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres...

. The film features an Aston Martin DB4 GT.

Technical details, premiere dates and DVD release

The Wrong Arm of the Law was filmed in 1.66:1 aspect ratio on 35-millimeter film and had its London premiere in March 1963. It opened in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

on April 2, 1963 and received a DVD release on February 24, 2004.
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