What a Carve Up! is a 1961 British

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...

 comedy horror film directed by Pat Jackson

Pat Jackson

Patrick Douglas Selmes Jackson was an English film and television director.Born in Eltham, Jackson worked as a production assistant on the 1936 short film Night Mail. He directed a number of documentaries in the mid-1930's. His debut feature film was 1944's Western Approaches. Jackson spent some...

. It was released in the United States in 1962 as No Place Like Homicide. The film starred Sid James

Sid James

Sid James was an English-based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films. He was known for his trademark "dirty laugh" and lascivious persona...

, Kenneth Connor

Kenneth Connor

Kenneth Connor MBE was an English comedy stage, radio, film and TV actor, best known for his appearances in the Carry On films.-Career:...

, Donald Pleasence

Donald Pleasence

Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...

, Shirley Eaton

Shirley Eaton

Shirley Eaton is an English actress.Eaton appeared regularly in British films throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and achieved notability for her performance as Bond Girl Jill Masterson in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger...

, 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...

, Timothy Bateson

Timothy Bateson

Timothy Dingwall Bateson was a British actor. The son of Dingwall Bateson, a solicitor later knighted, he was educated at Uppingham School and Wadham College, Oxford....

, Esma Cannon

Esma Cannon

Esma Ellen Charlotte Cannon was a diminutive Australian-born character actress, who moved to England in the early 1930s.-Career:...

, Michael Gough

Michael Gough

Michael Gough was an English character actor who appeared in over 150 films. He is perhaps best known to international audiences for his roles in the Hammer Horror films from 1958, and for his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth in all four movies of the Burton/Schumacher Batman franchise,...

, Michael Gwynn

Michael Gwynn

Michael Gwynn was an English actor. He attended Mayfield College near Mayfield, East Sussex. During the Second World War he served in East Africa as a major and was adjutant to the 2nd Battalion of the King's African Rifles.He is perhaps best remembered in contemporary culture as the shyster Lord...

, Valerie Taylor

Valerie Taylor (actress)

Valerie Taylor was an English actress. She was married the actor Hugh Sinclair.-Partial filmography:* Berkeley Square * Designing Women * Went the Day Well?...

, Philip O'Flynn, George Woodbridge

George Woodbridge

George Woodbridge was an American illustrator known for his exhaustive research and historical accuracy. He is sometimes referred to as "America's Dean of Uniform Illustration" because of his expertise in drawing military uniforms....

, Adam Faith

Adam Faith

Terence "Terry" Nelhams-Wright, known as Adam Faith was a Teen idol English singer, actor and later financial journalist. He was one of the most charted acts of the 1960s. He became the first UK artist to lodge his initial seven hits in the Top 5...

 and Frederick Piper

Frederick Piper

Frederick Piper was an English actor who appeared in over 80 films and many television productions in a career spanning over 40 years. Never a leading player, Piper was usually cast in minor, sometimes uncredited, parts although he also appeared in some more substantial supporting roles...

.

The film was loosely based on the novel The Ghoul by Frank King. A previous version titled The Ghoul was filmed in 1933 by Gaumont-British Pictures.

Plot

The relatives of Uncle Gabriel are summoned to an old country house in the middle of nowhere to hear the reading of his will. They all stay in the mansion overnight, and one by one the guests are murdered. The remaining guests must solve the mystery as to who is committing these murders before they too are killed.

Characters

• Sid Butler - Ernie Broughton's legal advisor
• Ernest 'Ernie' Broughton - Sid's best friend and house mate. His love interest is Miss Dixon
• Linda Dixon - The extremely attractive nurse who likes Ernie
• Guy Broughton - Ernie's cousin and a heavy drinker
• Everett Sloane - The zombie like solicitor. Sid quotes "He's bonkers enough to be one of the family!"
• Emily Broughton - The mad lady who believes World War I is still on
• Janet Broughton - Guy's hated and grasping sister
• Malcom Broughton - A gifted piano player, says everyone is "Quite mad"
• Dr Edward Broughton - Father of Janet and Guy
• Fisk - The Creepy Butler
• Gabriel Broughton - The mad owner of Black Shore Towers
• Arkwright - A Police Inspector who arrives after most of the household have been murdered

Reception

"At one point in No Place Like Homicide, a giggling maniac threatens to feed the rest of the cast to a pack of starving mongrels. 'Oh, blimey', smirks one of the victims, 'we're going to the dogs'. The rest of the humor in this ostensible British farce is on a similar level. The fact that a film of this degree of vulgarity and ineptitude should have managed a week's booking at neighborhood theatres throughout Manhattan demonstrates just how acute the motion picture product shortage really is." - The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, 13 September 1962.

The film was used extensively within Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Coe is an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name...

's satirical novel What a Carve Up!. The book's protagonist, Michael Owen, becomes obsessed with the film after first watching it as a young boy. Additionally, the last part of the book follows the plot of the film.