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Three Men in a Boat

5.3

/10

485 people rated

1957•1 h 31 m•United Kingdom

Three London gentlemen take a vacation rowing down the Thames, encountering various mishaps and misadventures along the way.

Comedy

Romance

Cast (18)

Laurence Harvey

David Tomlinson

Mrs. Porterhouse

Mr. Porterhouse

Noelle Middleton

Charles Lloyd Pack

1st Old Gentleman

2nd Old Gentleman

Ernest Thesiger

3rd Old Gentleman

Christian Duvaleix

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User Reviews

👑Royal_kreesh👑

25/11/2025 17:39

Three Men in a Boat

CSK Fans

02/09/2024 16:00

When I saw this film advertised on Talking Pictures, I just had to watch it. I think I saw it as a child many years ago; but in the meantime I had read the book and wanted to compare the interpretation. To be honest, I didn't find the book that funny despite the opinion of many critics down the years. I had an interest because I'm from Walsall, Jerome K Jerome's home town (didn't his parents have any imagination!). Anyhow, as mentioned elsewhere, the film has little in common with the book. Some of the scenarios used e.g. the picnic, are related as happening to acquaintances rather than the main characters themselves. Having said that, the tin of pineapples scene was pretty faithfully rendered. So far as casting goes, I think they got it about right. I had no problems with Laurence Harvey as George, and thought he was an effective counter to David Tomlinson's bumbling and Jimmy Edward's bull-in-a-china shop approach. Although the slapstick episodes did become tedious.The females were of course window dressing. Jill Ireland played her vacant self, and Shirley Eaton was a bit too modern for the era. Particularly in the bath scene! Strangely, Lisa Gastoni was the only one who convinced (what happened to her?) Martita Hunt, never a beauty, but always a beautiful performance, gave us her usual character; the matriarch. And I wonder if she was ever in anything other than period costume dramas? The Hampton Court Maze scene was the best, with a host of British character actors running around wildly trying to get out. In all it wasn't a bad movie. Like the book, it sought to convey a picture of an idyllic England, long-since vanished. Although in reality, such a vision only ever existed for the privileged few. A true representation of the book would be difficult to reproduce, and probably wouldn't be half as interesting. Coincidentally, when I worked at a college some years ago, three students retraced the journey down the Thames in a boat one summer vac. Like in the film, it apparently rained a lot!

LIDIANA ✨

02/09/2024 16:00

I watched this film for the first time last night and was quite disappointed by it. As someone you has read the book on many occasions I found this film to be a very poor adaption of it. I suppose if you were not trying to compare it with the book it was a fairly decent comedy from the fifties. I did not think think that the casting of Laurence Harvey as George was right though Jimmy Edwards and David Tomlinson seemed to fit into the light hearted romp very well. I think to be fair to the film I was expecting it to be much closer to the book then in fact it was but still it was a good representation of British Cinema from that era.

Nepal.Food

02/09/2024 16:00

For three buddies desperate for a getaway, a boat trip down the Thames seems like the perfect holiday. The issue is that it's a row boat and their nightly stops involve roughing it. Still, they manage to have many amusing adventures that bring them back into society. Handsome Laurence Harvey, clumsy David Tomlinson and big mustached Jimmy Edwards are a complete mismatch of personalities which makes their situation all the more amusing. Each of them has a good reason for needing a holiday whether it's necessary time away from their spouse or a rest from a hideous employer. A very funny sequence has Tomlinson and Edwards ending up as leaders in a maze made from shrubbery, going on for nearly 15 minutes and never running out of steam, and trying to build a tent on the banks during a windstorm. The law is also on their trail as word of their mishaps gets around, while issues with the young ladies they encounter creates all sorts of situations as well. While this is very colorful and funny, the problem is that it goes from one situation to another like TV sketch shows so the structure seems very off as opposed to connecting events in a linear way. But it's directed by great flair by legendary British director Ken Annakin who directed many fast moving caper comedies and had a marvelous eye for making silly situations actually funny rather than obnoxious. The three men all seem to be having a lot of fun in acting like boys which makes this fun to watch in spite of the lack of a strong continuous story.

kaina dosAnjos

02/09/2024 16:00

Having read most of the other reviews, I do feel that most of the reviewers have missed the point. I seem to be the only person here who's actually read the book (and it's sequel, Three Men on the Bummel), and would suggest that, although the film doesn't follow the book to a 'T' (but then, what film adaptation ever does), it does capture the flavour of JKJ's work-in fact, the opening sequence, the lock sequence and the pineapple chunks sequence are taken almost word-for-word... The setting has been moved forward 30 years or so (the book was published in 1889), and some artistic licence has been taken, but it's all done in good fun-and might entice some people to actually read it... The costumes are fantastic, the girls are wonderful, and , all in all, I should suggest this is well worth a watch on a wet Sunday afternoon... BTW, was Jimmy Edwards born with that moustache?..

John

02/09/2024 16:00

The Victorian era seemed like the good old days in the 1950s, so the time was right for this glossy exercise in nostalgia. It has an agreeable score by John Addison and is surprisingly lavish with CinemaScope used to good effect when national treasures A. E. Matthews, Earnest Thesiger & Miles Malleson put in an appearance lined up across the screen. Shirley Eaton, Lisa Gastoni & Jill Ireland are perhaps a bit too modern as the young gentlemen's lady loves and Lawrence Harvey as George seems seriously out of place amidst the general levity; his presence in the cast being accounted for by the influential friend he had in high places at Romulus Films.

maëlys12345679

02/09/2024 16:00

I recall seeing this movie when I was young and being a fan of the book (the 'tin of pineapple chunks' scene is still the funniest bit of writing I've ever read) but having just watched it again, I am sorely disappointed. The slapstick is completely at odds with JKJ's gentlemanly humour. However the location scenery on the Thames helps to make up for the poor direction and dialogue. I always liked Jimmy Edwards' style on TV, but it doesn't translate well after 50 years. Laurence Harvey made a big mistake with this, he is not a comedian but as usual David Tomlinson provides a solid performance. Jill Ireland, Shirley Eaton and Lisa Gastoni as the female interest are much much better than the boys

Myriam Sylla 🇬🇳🇨🇮

02/09/2024 16:00

So Jerome wrote this book packed full of comic incident about 3 bachelors on the river and what did the film-makers do here? they re-wrote and added,made them married or hen-pecked and hapless and so on until I couldn't watch any more.It's best to unearth the Beeb version with Palin.A vulgar mis-representation and only for those unfortunates who haven't read the book.For what it's worth I found the book's digressions tiresome but i suppose without them it would've been a very short story.

Tima M

02/09/2024 16:00

I read the reviews of Three Men in a Boat before watching the film and couldn't believe that it is as bad as most reviewers claim. I mean to say, just look at the cast. Tomlinson, Edwards and Harvey are not a collection of comedic geniuses, perhaps, but surely they amass enough talent to produce an amusing adaptation of this admired novel. However, the negative reviewers are correct: this film is simply terrible. Although it only runs to 84 minutes it took me five sittings to get through it. I could barely tolerate watching twenty minutes at a time. I persevered becausewell, look at the cast, surely they would deliver something funny eventually; perhaps the finale would be hilarious. I grew up in Britain and still love old British comedies: Ealing, of course, Will Hay, Alastaire Sim, Peter Sellers, and so many others. I even like the lower-level comedy of the Carry On series, Benny Hill, or Frankie Howerd. This film, though, has less laughs than Polanski's Macbeth. Some reviews have suggested that some people find the film unamusing because it is 'dated.' It was made in the fifties and set in the 1880s. However, these facts alone shouldn't be detrimental to a film's appeal. A good number of Britain's best and most appreciated comedies were made in the fifties, such as The Lavender Hill Mob, Hobson's Choice, and I'm All Right Jack. In fact, the decade is a Golden Age for British film comedy. The story's setting in an earlier period can hardly be detrimental either. Kind Hearts and Coronets stands easily as one of the best British comedies, yet it was set in the same historical period as Three Men in a Boat, was released six years earlier and was filmed in black and white. Similarly, Ken Annakin, this film's director, had his biggest successes with Monte Carlo or Bust! (1969) and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), both of which are set in times only slightly later than Three Men in a Boat and are equally far removed from contemporary audiences, but are still relatively amusing. Some films age badly because of the focus of the material. George Formby and the Old Mother Riley comedies relied for their context on a particular interwar period and a British working class culture that had largely disappeared by the 1960s and has little meaning for people in contemporary Britain, let alone the rest of the world. Other examples are the sex comedies made in Britain in the 1970s or the blacksploitation movies made in the US in the same decade. These films are clearly dated but retain entertainment value because of their anachronistic fashions and dialogue. Astonishingly, Three Men in a Boat was nominated for a BAFTA for, of all things, best screen play. This is baffling because the writers make little effort to drive the story with witty dialogue. Dialogue is, in fact, rather scant. The attempts at comedy come mostly from slapstick situations where our heroes wave tent poles and oars around for insufferable lengths of time, fall in the water repeatedly, and prattles on loudly and unintelligibly. The assumption is, apparently, that if these situations continue for long enough something funny simply has to happen. It doesn't. Slapstick can be badly done but it doesn't become dated. The silent movies of Chaplain and Keaton are still wonderful; the Three Stooges are still ridiculous and funny; much in Norman Wisdom's movies is dated, but when he falls through a window he is still hilarious. Not so Tomlinson, Edwards and Harvey. On this one, I'm afraid, I concur with the "smug" negative reviewers. This is the least funny Brit Com I've ever seen, and I've seen "Carry on England."

EMPEREUR_DUC

02/09/2024 16:00

Seldom have I seen a film this bad, no matter that the book it is based on is one of my favorites. It begins OK, but then turns into a bad slapstick movie, dated in every way - even Ed Wood's films are better! Nothing basically wrong with the acting, nothing very wrong with the photography (the colors have aged badly, though), the sets, or the wardrobe, but it is far more dated in every way than any other film I can think of. Very fiftyish, very safe, very boring! Ken Annakin has made a few good films throgh the years, like "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes", but this is definitely not one of them! As a whole the girls do a better job than the males - even when trying to laugh the the three men just sound very amateurish! Their battles with the tent and the boat is just silly, not funny, and as my wife commented: "Men can be stupid, but not that stupid"! Overall, the dog wins as best actor, by a wide margin!