Plot

A naive aristocrat in search of a career becomes caught up in the struggles between his profit-minded uncle and an aggressive labor union.

Naive Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael) returns from the war, his mind set on a successful career in business. Much to his own dismay, he soon finds he has to start from the bottom and work his way up, and also that the management, as well as the trade union, use him as a tool in their fight for power.

In postwar Britain, tricky Bertram Tracepurcel (Dennis Price) plans to get an Arab arms contract for his missile company, then arrange for a strike so that his partner Sidney De Vere Cox (Sir Richard Attenborough) gets the work at a higher price. Central to the scheme is Tracepurcel's innocent nephew Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael), who he persuades to take a job on the shop-floor, knowing he is bound to cause union problems. With shop steward Fred Kite (Peter Sellers) always ready to assert workers' rights trouble is indeed assured, though not quite in the way Bertram and Sidney intended.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}