Rotten to the Core

For the album by this title, see X-Fusion.

Rotten to the Core is a 1965 British comedy film directed by John Boulting.

It includes a young Anton Rodgers as the leader of a group of criminals, who attempt to stage an elaborate heist towards the end of the film.

Britain's famed comedy brothers John Boulting and Roy Boulting created this caper about a trio of crooks plotting to retrieve their ill-gotten booty. Upon finishing their sentence for pulling off a heist, they immediately go in search of their one-time leader, The Duke (Anton Rodgers). He was supposed to safeguard their share of the money, but the Duke's girlfriend Sara (Charlotte Rampling) informs them the Duke is dead, and the money is long gone. The gang discovers that she's lying, however, and that the Duke is masquerading as the head of a spa, the Hope Springs Nature Clinic, where he is planning a felony with some criminal cronies.

Eric Sykes plays a policeman who attempts to go undercover without much success. (As one character puts it "You can see his flat feet from here".)

Cast

• Anton Rodgers as the Duke
• Charlotte Rampling as Sara Capell
• Eric Sykes as William Hunt
• Ian Bannen as Lt. Percy Vine
• Thorley Walters as Chief Constable Preston
• Peter Vaughan as Sir Henry Capell
• Dudley Sutton as Jelly
• Kenneth Griffith as Lenny the Dip
• James Beckett as Scapa Flood
• Victor Maddern as Anxious O'Toole
• Avis Bunnage as Countess de Wett
• Frank Jarvis as Moby

Critical reception

• Time Out wrote the film had "some mildly funny moments, but most of the jokes are laboriously set up and loudly telegraphed."
• Variety wrote Anton Rodgers "shows versatility in four or five characterizations...(But) the Boulting Brothers’ knives are less sharp than customary."

External links

Rotten to the Core at IMDb