Like Father Like Son

As simpleminded as it appears, despite the fact that the theme is adduced in late Browning somewhere, this is a double-edged satire most acute and fearfully well-executed (cf. Ustinov’s Vice Versa).

The mere transposition of Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron, a doctor and his son, effected however you please, is a redemption of the sins of youth but primarily and to great effect a first-rate exposition of Moore’s prowess with physical comedy. He is all but unrivaled drunkenly manipulating a cigarette or bungling a tête-à-tête, that’s all. Here you have some of the finest inventions in the cinema, and they are not to be missed on any account.

For the rest, and beyond this, a little coda throws the proceedings back on the inquisitor and bully, who change places to the general astonishment and edification of the masses, like one of Mickey Mouse’s magisterial prestidigitations “with a sting in its tail.”