I Watch Films: The Wrong Arm Of The Law

 

The Wrong Arm Of The Law

Three Australian criminals in London run an IPO game – impersonating a police officer. Dressing up as coppers they rob criminals.

This causes a lot of problems for master criminal “Pearly” Gates (Peter Sellers) who has a front as French couturier called Charles Jules. One problem is that all his gang are fools who keep getting duped by the IPO mob. Initially he blames “Nervous” O’Toole, another master criminal, but they compare notes and call an emergency meeting of the syndicate, the closed shop of London crime. As this is a comedy there’s the opportunity for a lot of union/society meeting jokes, along with various unlikely criminals there.

They come to conclusion; why not go to the police? This is quite a delicate thing to try, but they manage to contact Inspector “Nosy” Parker and attempt to catch the IPO mob. Obviously “Nosy” is as incompetent as the criminals.

Some good setpiece robberies and also comic scenes. As a whole doesn’t quite hang together, some of the “comic” characters have not aged as well as might be hoped and it ends with a whimper.

Watch This: Classic crime comedy caper
Don’t Watch This: Moves slowly through overlong jokes and crimes