Make Me an Offer

Peter Finch - Charlie
Adrienne Corri - Nicky
Rosalie Crutchley - Bella
Finlay Currie - Abe Sparta
Ernest Thesiger - Sir John
Wilfrid Lawson - Charlie's Father
Anthony Nicholl - Auctioneer
Guy Middleton - Armstrong
Alfie Bass - Fred Frames

Engaging comedy centred on a young antiques dealer who gets a fur coat for his wife and a rare Wedgwood vase for himself. The amusing script by Wolf Mankowitz and W P Lipscomb struggles to satisfy a feature-length film and is bereft of an accompanying subplot. Peter Finch’s central performance is pleasing and there’s entertaining cameos by veterans Finlay Currie, Ernest Thesiger and Wilfrid Lawson.

Charlie (Peter Finch), a struggling antiques dealer who specializes in Wedgwood, an interest that has gripped him since childhood, has spent his entire life seeking a stolen piece of china known as the Portland Vase. He is asked to assess the Wedgwood plaques at a country house that is up for sale at auction on behalf of his landlord Abe Sparta (Finley Currie), but when he discovers they are French fakes, Charlie takes a stroll in the grounds and encounters the farmhouse of scatty redhead Nicky (Adrienne Corri) and her great-grandfather Sir John (Ernest Thesiger).

Nicky recognises that Charlie is an antiques dealer and shows him an array of china she hopes he might buy, but none interests him until in the attic he discovers the stolen Portland Vase covered in dust. The trouble is, the shrew Nicky is not keen on letting it go on the cheap. As a result, Charlie has to pull out every trick in the book and some incredible manoeuvring at the auction to ensure rival bidders pay him commission to give them a clear run. s for the same item agree that only one of them shall bid, thus getting the articles at a price much below the real value. Money in hand, he hurriedly returns to clinch the deal, but she reneges on the agreement and demands more, so Charles implores Sir John to release the vase to a fellow china aficionado.