Blame It on the Bellboy is a 1992 film written and directed by Mark Herman, revolving around a case of mistaken identity of three individuals with similar sounding surnames staying at the same hotel.
Plot
Three men board the same plane at Heathrow Airport bound for Venice: Melvyn Orton, a shy and unassuming clerk with an assignment of purchashing a house in Venice under penalty of losing his job; Mike Lawton, a hitman en route to Venice to kill his next mark, and Lord Maurice Horton, a rather large man who is major of a small city in the United Kingdom. All register in the Hotel Gabrielli, the first to check in is Maurice Horton, he establishes that his name is Horton with an overeager bellboy who goes through enormous efforts to pronountiate the letter "H". Then Melvyn arrives, who is checked in by the Hotel Manager and who initially believes that he and Mr. Horton are the same person, but Melvyn clarifies this because his name has no "H". Finally Mike Lawton checks in. They are all expecting messages from their contacts in Venice: Melvyn is expecting to hear from a Real State Agency that is selling a worthless Villa in the Lido, Mike from the Mafia and Maurice from a dating agency called Medi-date.
The bellboy receives the message for Melvyn and mistakenly delivers it to Mr. Horton, whereas Mike receives the message from Medi-date and finds out that his "mark" is a woman, while Melvyn receives Mike's commission.
The next day each man goes to their respective contacts: Maurice is showed around the Villa by Caroline Wright (who has received instructions to sell the house immediately and if she gets the money in cash, her commission will be trippled, allowing her to purchase a speed boat), however Maurice is under the false impression that they are on a date, since he plans to have sex with her and be done with it, but is baffled by the fact that she seems very intent (supported by double entendre and mistaken body talk) to get to "the knitti gritty". Mike is following Paticia (Maurice's date) around Venice, trying to pick up the courage to kill her, since he is having second thoughts about his chosen profession. Melvyn calls in seeking Mr. Scarpa, a mafioso that knows he is being sought by a killer, and is immediately detained by his thugs, taken to the cellar and tortured.
Maurice takes Caroline out for lunch while Patricia has noticed Mike (believing he is Maurice) following her around and engages him in conversation and Melvin is forced to call his boss in England with the natural result that the Mafiosi do not know who Mr. Marshall is and are even offended by the verbal abuse that Melvyn seems to take for granted. Since Mr. Scarpa cannot take any chances he decides that he will kill Mr. Marshall, but he will start with Melvyn, at the last minute Melvyn (who is about to have his testicles removed) realizes that he received the wrong letter and tells Mr. Scarpa that there is a Mr. Horton in his hotel and that probably he is the man that he is looking for. Meanwhile Maurice has tried to make a move on Caroline who is obviously offended, both still in wrong assumption of each other's agenda, since he believes her to be a prostitute and she believes that he will only pay cash for the Villa if she agrees to have sex with him. Mike is about to kill Patricia but stops at the last minute. Everyone returns to the hotel: Maurice and Caroline to have sex, Mike to do Patricia in and Melvyn, who managed to escape from the mafiosi to settle his account and run for his life.
Melvyn is about to escape when he is trapped again by the mafiosi and led back upstairs to a new room, Mike and Patricia have clarified that she is not his mark and that Medi-date is a legitimate company and not just a cover and realize that Mike got the wrong message. While, after being done with sex, Maurice and Caroline have finally come to realize their own mistakes. While Melvyn is being tortured again in his hotel room, the bellboy comes in and brings a woman with him but she says that he is not her husband, Mr. Horton, so they leave being followed by one of the mafiosi. Meanwhile Caroline is in Maurice's bathroom looking at the possibility that she got laid for nothing, when the bellboy brings Mrs. Horton in. She came to Venice after running into her husband's secretary who assumed that the Hortons were in a holiday in Venice while she thought that her husband was in a meeting away from town. Caroline uses this opportunity to force Maurice to buy the Villa for a price of one hundred thousand pounds cash, making it very clear to Maurice that if he pays she will keep their tryst secret.
In the late evening Maurice calls his bank manager in the UK and orders to have one hundred thousand pounds transferred to him in Venice, the mafiosi and Mike overhear this conversation. Mike and Patricia assume that Maurice killed the mark and got the money, since that was his fee. During the night the mafiosi have come to the decision of killing Maurice and Melvyn, since he knows too much, except if Melvyn kills Maurice, so they bring in a bomb that he can activate with a remote control.
The next day Maurice receives the money and keeps it in the hotel safe, the mafiosi get a matching briefcase in which they hide the bomb and manage to swap the tags in the hotel safe. At the appropriate time Maurice takes his briefcase and leaves for the Villa with Mike and the mafiosi in pursuit. Mike and Patricia try to steal the suitcase and have to fight both the Hortons and Caroline for the money, realizing their new mistake Mike and Patricia leave. Meanwhile Melvyn has been trying to activate the bomb but it turns out that the tags got swapped twice, killing the mafiosi instead.
Lido
Vaporetto terminal, seen from the Lagoon.
Back at the hotel Mike is getting ready to leave but receives a message: the job was done and not only the mark but two important associates were done in, thus a generous bonus was included.
Melvyn calls Mr. Marshall and tricks him for $300,000.00 GBP as the price for Mr. Scarpa's house in Venice. Melvyn takes the money and runs for the Bahamas, where he sets up a sporting goods shop specializing in testicle protectors and Mr. Marshall is killed by the mafia.
Caroline managed to purchase her boat, which came apart and sued the company for all their net worth. She later married a sumo wresler. The Hortons' Villa came down on the very first day and also their marriage, she met her life's love in Carib-date, he is still single.
Mike fulfilled his dream of setting up a florist shop and married Patricia who went to represent England in the Olympics for her skills with a short barrel gun.
The Bellboy was fired from his job in Venice and managed to keep his new job in the "HHHHHHHHOnolulu HHHHHHHawaii HHHHHHHHHilton HHHHHHotel for a whhhhhhole hhhhhhalf hhhhhhhour."
Cast
External links
