In his will, eccentric practical joker Henry Russell leaves his four relatives £150,000 each, but with stipulations designed to make each of them step completely out of character, and prove themselves as human beings.

Giulio Zampi went on to produce a number of movies for Associated British directed by his father, including Now and Forever, The Naked Truth, Your Past is Showing, Too Many Crooks, Bottoms Up and Five Golden Hours.

This kind of Ealing comedy idea died with the Fifties, but no one involved here seems to have noticed since the only concession to nearly twenty years of changing values is the fact that the four beneficiaries of the practical joker's will now stand to inherit three times more than they did in the original.

But though the cast work hard, only Michael Hordern as the put-upon crime novelist (Alastair Sim in the original) manages to raise a reluctant smile, notably during his frantic efforts at conspicuous shop-lifting in a crowded department store.

"[4] David Parkinson, reviewing in the Radio Times, commented: Some people really will find this comic calamity funny, but they'll be in a very small minority.

What makes this an even more depressing experience is the utter waste of a cast ... as the quartet forced to humiliate themselves to benefit from joker Wilfrid Brambell's will.