Lucky Jim (1957)

“A Redbrick University in Britain’s new Elizabethan age: here are moulded the intellectual Drakes and Raleighs of tomorrow – fearless, independent . . . and state supported.”

This likeable and lively British comedy from 1957 revolves around Jim Dixon (Ian Carmichael), a junior history lecturer at a provincial university.

Jim is a well-intentioned misfit with a flair for deflating sham and pomposity, and top of his private blacklist is Professor Welch (Hugh Griffith), smug, overbearing head of the history department.

Invited to the professor’s home for a ‘cultural weekend’, Jim – a northern grammar school boy made good – leaves a  trail of disaster in his wake . . .

The film ends happily with Jim getting the girl (Christine Callaghan played by Sharon Acker) but only after a chase-sequence involving a series of unconvincing studio shots.

Adapted from the first (and best) novel by Kingsley Amis, the film substitutes physical comedy for much of the novel’s satire.

Jim Dixon
Ian Carmichael
Bertrand Welch
Terry-Thomas
Professor Welch
Hugh Griffith
Christine Callaghan
Sharon Acker
Margaret Peel
Maureen Connell
Mrs Welch
Jean Anderson
Sir Hector Gore-Urquhart
Clive Morton
Porter
Reginald Beckwith
Cyril Johns
Kenneth Griffith
Bill Atkinson
Jeremy Hawk
Bob Roberts
John Cairney
Miss Wilson
Penny Morrell 
Principal
John Welch
Professor Hutchinson
Henry Longhurst
Registrar
Ronald Cardew
Glee Singer
Ian Wilson

Director
John Boulting