For the most part, "Blame It on the Bellboy" is low comedy: a bellhop (Bronson Pinchot) in a Venice hotel confuses the invitations going to a realtor (Dudley Moore),a philanderer (Richard Griffiths) and a mafioso (Bryan Brown),sending each man to the wrong location. There are some funny situations along the way - most of which involve the bellhop himself - but I think that it would have come out a little better had they cast someone other than Dudley Moore; Chevy Chase, Steve Martin or Dan Aykroyd could have done that role easily.

So, it's a nice, silly way to pass time. But don't bother with it more than once. All the cast members have done better than this.

In H-H-Honolulu, H-H-Hawaii for a wh-wh-whole h-h-half h-h-hour...

There are some very funny moments in this farcical comedy that goes in far too many directions, some of them disturbing, and often tacky. It's all because of the dizzy bellboy played by Bronson Pinchot that three hotel guests traveling to Venice are given the wrong communications, some of which threatened their lives. Still, it's a nice journey for the viewer to see the city that travels by river and gondola, and some familiar faces (a few before they were well known by American audiences) make this worth seeking out.

You've got Dudley Moore there on business for real estate, mistaken for a hitman that mobsters want to kill, Richard Griffiths as a tourist looking for some cheap thrills as a distraction from his wife, and Bryan Brown as the hitman who picks out the wrong target (Penelope Wilton long before "Downton Abbey") and falls in love with her. Patsy Kensit plays the real estate agent who is initially shocked when she realized what Griffiths wants, but ends up going there anyway, resorting to blackmail when his wife shows up.

So basically this is a rip-off of "California Suite", three separate stories which here do cross over even though the actors don't share a lot of footage with. I didn't find the torture scene with Moore and the mobsters at all funny, quite disturbing as a matter of fact. The growing love story between Brown and Wilton is probably the best of the three, and as far fetched as it is, the closest to realism that you'll get here. Had this been done by the writers of "A Fish Called Wanda", the writing and characters would have been a lot more developed, but it comes off as a one joke movie that stinks as bad as the canals do on a really hot summer day.

In Venice, gangster Scarpa is expecting an assassination attempt but he doesn't know that it's hit-man Mike Lawton (Bryan Brown). Melvyn Orton (Dudley Moore) is in town to check out properties for his boss. Real estate agent Caroline Wright (Patsy Kensit) is looking unload a dud quickly for triple the commission. Maurice Horton (Richard Griffiths) is looking to find an arranged date with Patricia Fulford. Major screw-ups by the bumbling bellboy (Bronson Pinchot) send the wrong messages to the various hotel clients. Horton is sent to Caroline Wright expecting a date. Orton is sent to Scarpa expecting to buy the property. Lawton is sent to Fulford expecting to kill her.

Writer/director Mark Herman misses the mark on this one. Bronson Pinchot's broad comedic performance is very distracting. The three misunderstandings come with a few chuckles. Patsy Kensit and Richard Griffiths are probably the closest to being funny. They are a little bit of sitcom and is almost comical. The other two stories are nowhere near funny. They turn into a lot of running around. After Patsy and Richard have done the deed, even that falls flat. It's a lot of misunderstanding without the comedy.