A Run for Your Money

Another of those cheap DVDs of vintage British movies I picked up was of the early Ealing (and Alec Guinness) comedy A Run for Your Money

Dai (Donald Houston) and Twm (Meredith Edwards) are a pair of coal miner brothers in the sort of small town in Wales that probably hasn't changed much since a couple of generations before the action in How Green Was My Valley. One day, however, their lives are about to change when they get word that they won a contest run by one of the big London newspapers, for which the prize was tickets to a England v. Wales rugby match in London, as well as the princely sum of £200 (this was the late 40s, so it was still a pretty good amount). They're going to have to hurry to catch the train to London.

You'd think the newspaper would have run the contest better, in that they would have known exactly which station and platform the two brothers would be getting into London on. This especially because they want to do a story on the two brothers -- in that case, I'd have thought the prize would include train tickets to London. Somehow, however, the reporter and photographer from the newspaper miss the two brothers like ships passing in the night.

It's just the first of a series of adventures the two brothers are going to have. One of their hats is an identifying feature and they nearly lose it in a cafe, along with some of the money they came to London with. That latter leads them to be met by Jo (Moira Lister). ny normal person would think that she's out to scam somebody who's just come into a bunch of money, but Dai is too much of a naïf to know better. The only saving grace for him is that Jo is able to lead him to the paper, and the reporter who was assigned the story on the brothers, Whimple (Alec Guinness). The only thing is, he writes the gardening column and has no particular desire to do this tory.

As for Twm, he runs into an old acquaintance, Huw (Hugh Griffith). Think every stereotype of the lovable drunk ethnic type, and that's Huw. Huw leads Twm on a wild goose chase around London, with the two of them never getting to the rugby match, and only meeting up with Dai in the last act. Still, everybody has a day to spend in London....

A Run for Your Money has one of those premises that sounds like it should be a lot better than it is. I think part of the problem for me was that the filmmakers really laid on the stereotypes. There's Welsh choral singing (not my thing), the preternaturally stupid country boy, and as I mentioned, the "lovable" drunk who is actually irritating. Couldn't Twm smack Huw and get to the newspaper?

I really wanted to like A Run for Your Money more than I did. But may some of you will like it.