Special Delivery (1978)

Written by CinemaSerf on April 2, 2024

"Alice" heads off to her judo class leaving husband "Ralph" with one instruction - clear the snow from the path! He forgot! When he returns home he finds an uniformed corpse at his front door. It's the mailman - and he's clearly slipped on the ice and will post no more. Bundled into the house by a panic-stricken "Ralph", he must now think of a plan to get shot of the body before he ends up on the wrong end of a costly lawsuit. Firstly, though, he decides to finish of the man's delivery round so suspicion wouldn't fall on his home, but he leaves his keys in the wrong trousers, gets apprehended by the police trying to break into his own house and that leaves the unsuspecting "Alice" to come home to a forced window, a naked postie and an half drunk bottle of Scotch. Turns out she had romantic history with the postman - so now it is her who must find a way of disposing of the body! It's only then she realises that he's not just passed out, but deceased. Did "Ralph" do it? She flees and when he returns from his trip to the cop shop, he sees there's no longer a body (or a wife) so decides it's best to just forget all about it and sit by the fire... I did quite enjoy the black humour here and the daftness of the last two minutes with police and coroner deciding that convenience was the better part of valour. The simple, snowy, animation is effective and Sandy Sanderson's narration keeps his tongue well in his cheek.