Aging Dame Beatrice Appleby (Athene Seyler), and her lodgers, a washed-up military officer (Terry-Thomas), a very butch etiquette instructor (Hattie Jacques), and a nervous china mender (Elspeth Duxbury), are caught in a meaningless routine until circumstances “compel” them to become fur thieves—for charity. The beautiful, ex-con housekeeper (Billie Whitelaw), the only one who knows anything about crime, is kept in the dark, as the misfits carryout a series of daring capers.
One of the best of the later Post-War British Comedies, Make Mine Mink takes the often used tactic of tossing a group of eccentric characters into a situation where they have to work together. Many films in the movement did the same thing, but few did it as well. While the predicaments the gang of thieves get themselves mixed up in are clever, it is the characters and inspired casting that makes the film sing.
Terry-Thomas, known for his stereotypical English, upper-class twit roles, was a wonderful comedian who was generally wasted, getting minimal screen time as the comical heavy or silly man-at-the-bar. However, as Major Rayne, ex-commander of a mobile bath unit, he’s front and center and shifts easily from slapstick, to quiet wit with ease. It is the best role of his career. It helps that he has Hattie Jacques as his main foil and companion. In Britain, she was famous for a string of Carry On films, though she is nearly unknown in the U.S. Jacques is one of those actresses that makes me laugh no matter what she does.
But this isn’t just a Thomas-Jacques vehicle, but an ensemble picture where everyone has their moment and everyone excels. It would be easy to lose the relatively normal character of the housekeeper (well, not so easy considering Whitelaw’s beauty), but she holds her own. She is our introduction to the strange household and the anchor that keeps the film from drifting into absurdity.
Make Mine Mink is another of the movement films that celebrates the quirky and unconventional, but unlike the bulk of the pictures made at Ealing Studios, it shies away from the sentimental climax in favor of laughs.