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54-396: The Wrong Box is a 1966 British comedy film produced and directed by Bryan Forbes and starring John Mills, Ralph Richardson and a large ensemble cast. The screenplay was by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove , based on the 1889 novel The Wrong Box by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne . It was made by Salamander Film Productions and distributed by Columbia Pictures . In

108-480: A United States federal regulation , 16 CFR Part 453 (known as the Funeral Rule ), if a family provides a casket they purchased elsewhere (for example from a United States retail warehouse store, as illustrated here), the establishment is required to accept the casket and use it in the services. If the casket is delivered direct to the funeral home from the manufacturer or store, they are required to accept delivery of

162-713: A camp sensibility lay behind the successful Carry On films , while in America subversive independent film-maker John Waters made camp films for college audiences with his drag queen friends that eventually found a mainstream audience. The success of the American television show Saturday Night Live drove decades of cinema with racier content allowed on television drawing on the program's stars and characters, with bigger successes including Wayne's World , Mean Girls , Ghostbusters and Animal House . Parody and joke-based films continue to find audiences. While comedic films are among

216-412: A deceased person, it can also be called a pall , a term that also refers to the cloth used to cover the coffin while those who carry a casket are the pallbearers . Coffins are traditionally made with six sides plus the top (lid) and bottom, tapered around the shoulders, or rectangular with four sides. Another form of four-sided coffin is trapezoidal (also known as the "wedge" form) and is considered

270-492: A delivery wagon just leaving and assumes that his uncle's body has just been delivered. Morris then goes to Dr. Pratt to try to obtain a blank death certificate . Michael helps the delivery men move the crate into Joseph's house. This stirs the passions of both Julia and Michael and they kiss for the first time. Michael draws back and says they cannot do this because they are cousins; then they discover that they were both adopted orphans, thus unrelated by blood. Michael discovers

324-430: A pauper's funeral was paid for by the parish, the coffin might have been made of the cheapest, thinnest possible pine . At the other extreme, a coffin bought privately by a wealthy individual might have used yew or mahogany with a fine lining, plated fittings and brass decorations, topped with a decorated velvet drape. In modern times coffins are almost always mass-produced. Some manufacturers do not sell directly to

378-491: A putrefied liquefaction of the body, and all putrefied tissue remains inside the container, only to be exposed in the event of an exhumation. A container that allows air to pass in and out, such as a simple wooden box, allows for clean skeletonization . However the situation will vary according to soil or air conditions, and climate. Coffins are made of many materials, including steel, various types of wood, and other materials such as fiberglass or recycled kraft paper . There

432-400: A coffin made of wood or other materials like particle board or low-density fibreboard. Others will rent a regular casket for the duration of the services. These caskets have a removable bed and liner which is replaced after each use. There are also rental caskets with an outer shell that looks like a traditional coffin and a cardboard box that fits inside the shell. At the end of the services

486-478: A couple of fuddy-duddy crooks. Sure, the whole nutty business is tumbled together haphazardly in the script that has been written – or maybe scrambled – by Larry Gelbert and Burt Shevelove. Some sections and bits are funnier than others. Some are labored and dull. It is that sort of story, that sort of comedy. But it adds up to a lively lark." Dennis Schwartz called it a "Mildly amusing silly black comedy." AllMovie wrote, "By turns wacky and weird, The Wrong Box

540-458: A mangled body wearing their uncle's coat and assume their uncle is dead. To protect their interest in the tontine, they hide the body in the woods. Morris tells John to crate the body up and post it to London. Meanwhile, Joseph wanders away from the accident scene. In London, Michael gets a telegram telling him to expect a crate containing a statue. Morris arrives and mistakes the elderly butler, Peacock, for Masterman. Morris decides to try to hide

594-515: A separate genre, but rather, provides a better understanding of the film. Coffin Coffins are sometimes referred to as caskets , particularly in American English. Any box in which the dead are buried is a coffin, and while a casket was originally regarded as a box for jewelry , use of the word "casket" in this sense began as a euphemism introduced by the undertaker 's trade. A distinction

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648-585: A telegram from Michael in their boarding house in Bournemouth, saying that Masterman is dying. On the train trip to London, Joseph escapes from his grandson minders , entering a compartment and boring the sole occupant with a diatribe of trivial facts about the history of knitting. Joseph goes to smoke a cigarette, leaving behind his coat, which the occupant, "the Bournemouth Strangler", dons. The train then collides with another one. Morris and John find

702-467: A tradition that already existed in Accra where the kings were using figurative palanquins in the forms of their family symbol. And as those chiefs who were using figurative palanquins had to be buried in a coffin looking like their palanquin, their families used figurative coffins which were formerly nothing else than the copies of the design palanquins. Today figurative coffins are of course no more reserved for

756-467: A variant of the six-sided hexagonal kind of coffin. Continental Europe at one time favoured the rectangular coffin or casket, although variations exist in size and shape. The rectangular form, and also the trapezoidal form, is still regularly used in Germany, Austria, Hungary and other parts of Eastern and Central Europe, with the lid sometimes made to slope gently from the head down towards the foot. Coffins in

810-562: Is a film genre that emphasizes humor . These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending , with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the oldest genres in film, and it is derived from classical comedy in theatre . Some of the earliest silent films were slapstick comedies , which often relied on visual depictions, such as sight gags and pratfalls, so they could be enjoyed without requiring sound. To provide drama and excitement to silent movies, live music

864-567: Is a welcome alternative to standard issue film comedies." In his autobiography What's it All About? , Michael Caine wrote of the movie's reception, that the film "is so British that it met with a gentle success in most places except Britain, where it was a terrible flop. I suppose this was because the film shows us exactly as the world sees us - as eccentric, charming and polite – but the British knew better that they were none of these things, and it embarrassed us." Comedy film The comedy film

918-414: Is blown around the cemetery. Joseph pops up from the open grave just as Masterman arrives. The lawyer arrives to say the tontine has yet to be won. The police detective arrives, and Morris is arrested. They ask who put the body in the piano, as there is a £1000 reward for catching the Bournemouth Strangler. A new argument begins. Pinewood Studios , Iver , Buckinghamshire , was the main production base for

972-476: Is commonly drawn between "coffins" and "caskets", using "coffin" to refer to a tapered hexagonal or octagonal (also considered to be anthropoidal in shape) box and "casket" to refer to a rectangular box, often with a split lid used for viewing the deceased as seen in the picture. Receptacles for cremated and cremulated human ashes (sometimes called cremains) are called urns . First attested in English in 1380,

1026-430: Is discovered. Masterman sits up as the coffin is being taken away. The cousins make off with the tontine money in a hearse . Michael and Julia chase Morris and John aboard another hearse. They then encounter a real funeral procession . After a confusing crash, Morris and John realise they have a body instead of the money. The tontine money is about to be buried when they grab it and run off. The box bursts open, and money

1080-895: Is emerging interest in eco-friendly coffins made of purely natural materials such as bamboo , X-Board , willow or banana leaf. In the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century in the United States, glass coffins were widely sold by travelling salesmen, who also would try to sell stock of the companies making the coffins. Custom coffins are occasionally created and some companies also make set ranges with non-traditional designs. These include printing or painting of peaceful tropical scenes, sea-shells, sunsets, cherubim, and patriotic flags. Some manufacturers have designed them to look like gym carry bags, guitar cases, cigar humidors, and even yellow dumpster bins. Other coffins are left deliberately blank so that friends and family can inscribe final wishes and thoughts upon them to

1134-621: Is packed with dried grasses. Sometimes coffins are constructed to permanently display the corpse, as in the case of the glass-covered coffin of the Haraldskær Woman on display in the Church of Saint Nicolai in Vejle , Denmark or the glass-coffins of Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong , which are in Red Square , Moscow and Tiananmen Square , Beijing , respectively. When a coffin is used to transport

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1188-510: Is signally lacking in this adaptation is the completely coherent, quietly zany logic which was the original's greatest charm." Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times , "Perhaps the best of the clowning is the little bit Mr. Sellers does as this drink-sodden, absent-minded skip-jack, fumbling foolishly and a little sadly among his cats. But Mr. Richardson is splendid as a scholarly charlatan, and Mr. Mills and Mr. Lawson are capital as

1242-761: The Greater Accra Region . These colourful objects, which are not only coffins, but considered real works of art, were shown for the first time to a wider Western public in the exhibition Les Magiciens de la terre at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris in 1989. The seven coffins shown in Paris were done by Seth Kane Kwei (1922–1992) and by his former assistant Paa Joe (b. 1947). Since then coffins of Kane Kweis successors Paa Joe , Daniel Mensah , Kudjoe Affutu or Eric Adjetey Anang and others have been displayed in many international art museums and galleries around

1296-450: The 19th century. The handles and other ornaments (such as doves, stipple crosses, crucifix , symbols etc.) that go on the outside of a coffin are called fittings (sometimes called 'coffin furniture' – not to be confused with furniture that is coffin shaped) while organizing the inside of the coffin with fabric of some kind is known as "trimming the coffin". Cultures that practice burial have widely different styles of coffins. In Judaism ,

1350-520: The UK are mainly similar to the hexagonal design, but with one-piece sides, curved at the shoulder instead of having a join. In Medieval Japan, round coffins were used, which resembled barrels in shape and were usually made by coopers . In the case of a death at sea, there have been instances where trunks have been pressed into use as coffins. Coffins usually have handles on the side so they will be easier to carry. They may incorporate features that claim to protect

1404-409: The barrel containing the body is being delivered to Masterman's house by mistake, and Joseph hurriedly agrees to sign for the barrel for "Mr Finsbury". Minutes later, the crate containing the statue, also addressed to "Mr Finsbury", which Michael is expecting, is mistakenly delivered to Joseph's house and accepted by Julia who believes it is an expected delivery. Morris, arriving at Joseph's house, sees

1458-559: The body in the barrel and, after learning of the "altercation" between Masterman and Joseph from Peacock, assumes that his grandfather killed his brother. When Julia arrives with some broth for Masterman, Michael hides the body in a piano. That night, Michael hires " undertakers " to dump the corpse into the Thames , but when they arrive, Masterman has just fallen down the staircase, so they take his unconscious body. Seeing this, Morris gleefully assumes Masterman has died. Morris and John go to claim

1512-446: The body long enough for Masterman to die, and then claim Joseph died of a heart attack upon hearing the news. Morris and John plot to ship the body to Joseph's London home where Julia lives. John sends the body in a large barrel. Joseph makes his way to London on his own and visits his brother. Masterman makes several failed attempts to kill his brother, with Joseph oblivious to the attempts. They separate after quarrelling, and as he leaves

1566-409: The body or for public health reasons. For example, some may offer a protective casket that uses a gasket to seal the casket shut after it is closed for the final time. In England, it has long been law that a coffin for interment above ground should be sealed; this was traditionally implemented as a wooden outer coffin around a lead lining, around a third inner shell. After some decades have passed,

1620-406: The cat-festooned venal doctor, and Wilfrid Lawson as a wonderfully ancient butler – but they are just moments, buried in a quagmire of damp inventions which destroy a story already quite inventive enough. ... The Wrong Box is a swinging comedy in the contemporary manner. Which means that it is a slapdash affair in which anything goes, irrespective of whether or not it fits ... The thing that

1674-595: The coffin must be plain, made of wood and contain no metal parts or adornments. These coffins use wooden pegs instead of nails. All Jews are buried in the same plain cloth shroud from shoulder to knees, regardless of status in life, gender or age. In China , coffins made from the scented, decay-resistant wood of cypress , sugi , thuja and incense-cedar are in high demand. Certain Aboriginal Australian groups use intricately decorated tree-bark cylinders sewn with fibre and sealed with adhesive as coffins. The cylinder

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1728-517: The coffin, as determined by the number of timber frames in its composition, also emphasized the level of nobility , as mentioned in the Classic of Rites , Xunzi and Zhuangzi . Examples of this have been found in several Neolithic sites: the double coffin, the earliest of which was found in the Liangzhu culture (3400–2250 BC) site at Puanqiao, Zhejiang, consists of an outer and an inner coffin, while

1782-429: The coffin. However, no coffin, regardless of its construction material ( e.g. , metal rather than wood), whether or not it is sealed, and whether or not the deceased was embalmed beforehand, will perfectly preserve the body. In some cases, a sealed coffin may actually speed up rather than slow down the process of decomposition. An airtight coffin, for example, fosters decomposition by anaerobic bacteria , which results in

1836-509: The deceased. In Taiwan , coffins made of crushed oyster shells were used in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 1990s, the rock group Kiss released a customized Kiss Kasket , which featured their trademark makeup designs and KISS logo and could also be used as a cooler. Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell was buried in one. Design coffins in Ghana , also called Fantasy coffins or figurative coffins, are only made by specialized carpenters in

1890-466: The early 19th century, a lawyer explains to a group of young boys that a form of tontine has been organised; £1,000 has been invested for each child (£20,000 in total), but only the last survivor will receive all the capital and earned interest. Sixty-three years later, elderly brothers Masterman and Joseph Finsbury, who live next to each other in Victorian London , are the last surviving members of

1944-470: The figurative palanquins which had existed already a long time. With the resurgence of cremation in the Western world , manufacturers have begun providing options for those who choose cremation. For a direct cremation a cardboard box is sometimes used. Those who wish to have a funeral visitation (sometimes called a viewing ) or traditional funeral service will use a coffin of some sort. Some choose to use

1998-515: The film industry due to their popularity. In The Screenwriters Taxonomy (2017), Eric R. Williams contends that film genres are fundamentally based upon a film's atmosphere, character, and story, and therefore, the labels "drama" and "comedy" are too broad to be considered a genre. Instead, his taxonomy argues that comedy is a type of film that contains at least a dozen different sub-types. A number of hybrid genres have emerged, such as action comedy and romantic comedy . The first comedy film

2052-457: The individual cemetery . In parts of Sumatra , Indonesia , ancestors are revered and bodies were often kept in coffins kept alongside the longhouses until a ritual burial could be performed. The dead are also disinterred for rituals. Mass burials are also practiced. In northern Sulawesi , some dead were kept in above ground sarcophagi called waruga until the practice was banned by the Dutch in

2106-475: The inner box is removed and the deceased is cremated inside this box. Traditionally, in the Western world, a coffin was made, when required, by the village carpenter , who would frequently manage the whole funeral . The design and workmanship would reflect the skills of that individual carpenter, with the materials and brasses being the materials that were available to the carpenter at the time. In past centuries, if

2160-417: The lead may ripple and tear. In the United States, numerous cemeteries require a vault of some kind in order to bury the deceased. A burial vault serves as an outer enclosure for buried remains and the coffin serves as an inner enclosure. The primary purpose of the vault is to prevent collapse of the coffin due to the weight of the soil above. Some manufacturers offer a warranty on the structural integrity of

2214-743: The most popular with audiences at the box office, there is an 'historical bias against a close and serious consideration of comedy' when it comes to critical reception and conferring of awards, such as at the Academy Awards . Film writer Cailian Savage observes "Comedies have won Oscars, although they’ve usually been comedy-dramas, involved very depressing scenes, or appealed to stone-hearted drama lovers in some other way, such as Shakespeare in Love ." According to Williams' taxonomy , all film descriptions should contain their type (comedy or drama) combined with one (or more) sub-genres. This combination does not create

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2268-430: The public, and only work with funeral homes. In that case, the funeral director usually sells the casket to a family for a deceased person as part of the funeral services offered, and the price of the casket is included in the total bill for services rendered. Some funeral homes have small showrooms to present families with the available caskets that could be used for a deceased family member. In many modern funeral homes

2322-413: The showroom will consist of sample pieces that show only the end pieces of each type of coffin that can be used. They also include samples of the lining and other materials. This allows funeral homes to showcase a larger number of coffin styles without the need for a larger showroom. Other types may be available from a catalogue, including decorative paint effects or printed photographs or patterns. Under

2376-777: The studio sets and many exteriors, with the Victorian London crescent exteriors being shot on Bath 's historic Royal Crescent , complete with TV aerials on the roofs. The funeral coach and horse chase was filmed in St James's Square, Bath , and on Englefield Green , Surrey , and surrounding lanes. The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Anyone with fond recollections of the Stevenson-Osbourne novel would be well advised to be wary of this version of The Wrong Box . Not that it hasn't some very funny moments – thanks mainly to Ralph Richardson's manically boring Uncle Joseph, Peter Sellers as

2430-506: The tontine, producing the fake death certificate. The lawyer tells them it is now worth £111,000. Rescued from the river, Masterman is returned home by the Salvation Army , who assume he drowned himself. Julia orders a fancy coffin for him. Morris orders a cheap coffin to remove the mutilated body, but it is delivered to the wrong house, and Michael sells the piano, unaware the body is still in it. The police become involved when that body

2484-513: The tontine. Masterman is attended by his unpromising medical student grandson Michael Finsbury, and, although Masterman has not talked to his despised brother in many years, he sends Michael next door to summon Joseph to see him. Michael is greeted by Julia, Joseph's niece. They see each other often on the street and secretly admire each other. She explains Joseph is in Bournemouth with her cousins. Meanwhile, Julia's cousins, Morris and John, receive

2538-433: The traditional Ga and their kings, many families who use figurative coffins are indeed Christians. For them design coffins have no longer a spiritual function, their appeal is more aesthetic, aimed at surprising mourners with strikingly innovative forms like automobiles or aeroplanes, fish or pigs, onions or tomatoes. So the figurative coffins, rather than constituting a new art form as it was long believed, were developed from

2592-583: The triple coffin, with its earliest finds from the Longshan culture (3000–2000 BC) sites at Xizhufeng and Yinjiacheng in Shandong, consists of two outer coffins and one inner. A coffin may be buried in the ground directly, placed in a burial vault or cremated. Alternatively it may be entombed above ground in a mausoleum , a chapel , a church , or in a loculus within catacombs . Some countries practice one form almost exclusively, whereas in others it may depend on

2646-508: The use of comedy film to make social statements by building their narratives around sensitive cultural, political or social issues. Such films include Dr Strangelove, or How I Learned to Love the Bomb , Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and The Graduate . In America, the sexual revolution drove an appetite for comedies that celebrated and parodied changing social morals, including Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Fanny Hill . In Britain,

2700-636: The word coffin derives from the Old French cofin , from Latin cophinus , which means basket , which is the latinisation of the Greek κόφινος ( kophinos ), basket . The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek ko-pi-na , written in Linear B syllabic script. The modern French form, couffin , means cradle . The earliest evidence of wooden coffin remains, dated at 5000 BC,

2754-538: The world. The design coffins of the Ga have long been celebrated in the Western art world as the invention of a single, autonomous artist, the coffin maker Kane Kwei (1924–1992) of Teshie . But as Regula Tschumi shows with her recent research this assumption was false. Design coffins have existed already before Kane Kwei and other Ga carpenters like Ataa Oko (1919–2012) from La have built their first figurative coffins around 1950. Kane Kwei and Ataa Oko had only continued

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2808-414: Was L'Arroseur Arrosé (1895), directed and produced by film pioneer Louis Lumière . Less than a minute long, it shows a boy playing a prank on a gardener. The most notable comedy actors of the silent film era (1895–1927) were Charlie Chaplin , Harold Lloyd , and Buster Keaton , though they were able to make the transition into “ talkies ” after the 1920s. Film-makers in the 1960s skillfully employed

2862-517: Was found in the Tomb 4 at Beishouling, Shaanxi . Clear evidence of a rectangular wooden coffin was found in Tomb 152 in an early Banpo site. The Banpo coffin belongs to a four-year-old girl; it measures 1.4 m (4.6 ft) by 0.55 m (1.8 ft) and 3–9 cm thick. As many as 10 wooden coffins have been found at the Dawenkou culture (4100–2600 BC) site at Chengzi, Shandong . The thickness of

2916-417: Was played in sync with the action on the screen, on pianos, organs, and other instruments. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1920s, comedy films grew in popularity, as laughter could result from both burlesque situations but also from humorous dialogue . Comedy, compared with other film genres , places more focus on individual star actors, with many former stand-up comics transitioning to

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