Jim Dixon struggles with university work, Professor Welch's boring behavior, and his neurotic friend Margaret Peel. His misery is further complicated by his son Bertrand and companion Christ... Read allJim Dixon struggles with university work, Professor Welch's boring behavior, and his neurotic friend Margaret Peel. His misery is further complicated by his son Bertrand and companion Christine Callaghan.Jim Dixon struggles with university work, Professor Welch's boring behavior, and his neurotic friend Margaret Peel. His misery is further complicated by his son Bertrand and companion Christine Callaghan.
John Welsh
- The Principal
- (as John Welch)
Henry B. Longhurst
- Professor Hutchinson
- (as Henry Longhurst)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAt 46 Terry-Thomas was a year older than Hugh Griffith, who played his father. Jean Anderson, playing his mother, was only 4 years older than Thomas.
- GoofsThe taxi used by Jim and Christine when leaving the ball has 'Taxi' on a paper sign in the windscreen which is not there in long shot.
- Crazy creditsOpening credits prologue: A Redbrick University in Britain's new Elizabethan age: here are moulded the intellectual Drakes and Raleighs of tomorrow - fearless, independent - and state supported
- ConnectionsReferenced in The Bill: Lucky Jim (1999)
Featured review
What have they done to my favorite novel?
It's hard for me to be objective about this film, as it is adapted from my favorite novel--which I've read eight or nine times. Also, I waited so long to see it that it may have been inevitable that I would ultimately be disappointed. Ironically, I first heard about the film some years before I read the book, and it was only after I read the book that I made the connection between it and the description my brother had once given me. It would be about 20 years (no kidding!) before I finally saw the film myself. I've now seen it twice and mostly hated it both times.
Kingsley Amis's LUCKY JIM was obligatory reading among history students when I was in grad school 30 years ago. The story about an unhappy history instructor in a crummy British provincial university expressed a lot of the angst that we felt as grad students, and it was funnier than heck as well. I loved the book then, and still love all these years later. Why, then, was the film such a disappointment? Mainly because the script muted much of the savageness of Amis's humor, and because it tacked on an idiotic chase scene at the end that has nothing whatever to do with the original story--or even with what goes before it in the film. (Even Ian Carmichael--who played Jim--hated that ending. He told me that the people making the film didn't seem to have any idea of what they were doing--and it shows.)
The producers also added a very unsatisfactory and irrelevant academic procession in them middle of the film--evidently for the sole purpose of making Carmichael look like a klutz by having him tripping over flowerpots and dropping things in the middle of the solemn affair.
Nevertheless, the film does have its virtues, chief among them is excellent casting. Ian Carmichael was born to play Jim. Terry-Thomas was properly unctuous as Bertrand; Hugh Griffith certainly looked the part as Professor Neddy; Maureen Connell looked like I imagined the neurotic Margaret Peel; and Sharon Acker made a fine-looking Christine Callaghan.
Kingsley Amis's LUCKY JIM was obligatory reading among history students when I was in grad school 30 years ago. The story about an unhappy history instructor in a crummy British provincial university expressed a lot of the angst that we felt as grad students, and it was funnier than heck as well. I loved the book then, and still love all these years later. Why, then, was the film such a disappointment? Mainly because the script muted much of the savageness of Amis's humor, and because it tacked on an idiotic chase scene at the end that has nothing whatever to do with the original story--or even with what goes before it in the film. (Even Ian Carmichael--who played Jim--hated that ending. He told me that the people making the film didn't seem to have any idea of what they were doing--and it shows.)
The producers also added a very unsatisfactory and irrelevant academic procession in them middle of the film--evidently for the sole purpose of making Carmichael look like a klutz by having him tripping over flowerpots and dropping things in the middle of the solemn affair.
Nevertheless, the film does have its virtues, chief among them is excellent casting. Ian Carmichael was born to play Jim. Terry-Thomas was properly unctuous as Bertrand; Hugh Griffith certainly looked the part as Professor Neddy; Maureen Connell looked like I imagined the neurotic Margaret Peel; and Sharon Acker made a fine-looking Christine Callaghan.
helpful•214
- arkent
- Jun 2, 2001
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Volltreffer ins Glück
- Filming locations
- The Royal Masonic School, Bushey, Hertfordshire, England, UK(red-brick university where Jim works)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 35 minutes
- Color
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