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A decade before Terry Southern and Tony Richardson began taking swipes at institutions in wild farces
such as Dr. Strangelove and The Loved One, the Boulting brothers were making sly, wicked comedies that were just as devastating in principle.
This might be their masterwork, a brutal parody of Britain’s class struggle as manifested in the industrial sector.
Here, industrialists and aristocrats seem like corrupt fools, while labor and the underclass come across as a self-serving, obstinate mob. Although Ian Carmichael, Terry-Thomas, Dennis Price, and above all Peter Sellers make this grim account quite funny,
much of the humor derives from the Boultings’ insanely complex story line and deliciously ironic circumstances.
And those hilarious names. One wonders if the Coen brothers have considered a remake.

There is something transcendent in Sellers’ performance.
Casual Sellers fans look to Inspector Clouseau, Henry Orient, and Dr. Strangelove for sources of hilarity.
Serious observers find more significant pleasure in Chauncey Gardener (Being There), President Merkin Muffley (Dr. Strangelove), and Fred Kite, the latter being the most fully realized and stunningly cruel portrayal in this picture.
Kite is a union organizer who has the heart of a Bolshevik and the intellect of a schoolboy (“Ahhh, Russia. All them corn fields and ballet in the evening.”).
His ridiculous Marxist convictions merely exacerbate a natural inclination to take offense at any management decision,
declare a strike at whim, and otherwise carry on a humorless existence on behalf of a failed philosophy.
Kite is therefore often painfully funny to watch; at other times, he’s just painful.
But there’s something kind of sweet about him.