Sneaky Pete & Co.

The Wrong Arm of the Law. The Sellers Syndicate, as students of cinema crime are well aware, long since wrested control of London's underworld from the Lavender Hill Mob. Smart Alec Guinness went south for his health, and a report from Arabia indicates that he has moved in on the territory of the Turk. Now it is Sneaky Pete Sellers' turn to meet some cheeky competition. In this cops-and-robbers comedy from Britain, some unspeakable gorillas from Australia put the muscle on the great man, and he is not one bloody little bit amused.

Fortunately, the customers are, or sometimes are. Who wouldn't be amused at the sight of Funnyman Sellers flitting into a jewelry store disguised as Monsieur Jules, the famous French couturier. As the jeweler dials the combination of his safe, Monsieur makes movies of the process with a hidden camera, and all the while permits a hilariously snaky little smile to slither through his indistinct mustache. A few days later Sellers holds a private screening for some of the boys. "That's all for todye," he says briskly as the show concludes. "Nex' week we'll 'ave a prowgram uv eddikytional an' trynin' films, startin' wiv Rififi an' fullowed boi a discussion uv what we've learned. But first --gaow in an' get them jools!"

The boys go in, all right, but when they try to come out they are met by an officer of the law who herds them to a police car. The officer--what's this! The officer ignores his prisoners, grabs the jewels, scats.

He's an Australian bounder dressed up like a British bobby, and so are the other members of the I.P.O. (Impersonating Police Officers) Gang. In one week alone they pluck six plums off Sellers' thumb, and by week's end the poor punk is driven to a desperate remedy: set a cop to catch a cop. Unfortunately, Inspector Fred ("Nosy") Parker (Lionel Jeffries), who qualifies handily as the stupidest flatfoot seen on screen since Edgar Kennedy turned in his badge, couldn't catch a hangnail in a square mile of linsey-woolsey.

In a script that runs more to whimsy than to wit, the inspector is given most of the good lines. "A Boche!" he bellows indignantly when Sellers, setting a trap for the I.P.O. Gang, suggests a German safecracker for a -L-250,000 bank robbery. "See 'ere cahn't we give this job to a British lad?" But Sneaky Pete has the sneakiest line in the show. Preoccupied with his problems, he waffles into his flat one evening and whoops absentmindedly for his mistress:

"Where ah you, dahling?"

"I'm in the showah."

"Mm. Anyone with you?"

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