While watching this Will Hay-starring comedy, I was
reminded of the different release strategies that companies take when releasing
British Cinema films on DVD, particularly the decisions made by Studio Canal UK
/ Optimum Releasing when selecting and packaging the Ealing Studios DVDs I’m
currently watching. From the on-screen menus (and some quick internet
research) it is clear this disc was originally part of The Will Hay Collection,
but has also been subsequently re-packaged in the colours and branding of the
Ealing Studios Collection. This slightly schizophrenic double-life appears to
be replicated in the film itself, however, which doesn’t feel as coherent as
some of the earlier and later Ealing comedies I’ve seen, but equally doesn’t
feel completely like a strong ‘Will Hay’ film either.
The film does not, for example, match any of the thematic
conventions of the ‘Ealing comedy’ that Charles Barr starts to sketch out:
notably issues around quality versus quantity, small being beautiful, large and
corporate being ugly. This knockabout comedy, with its South American spy
thriller undertones, cross-dressing, slapstick and actorly mugging, is a
different beast to the post-war comedies that tend to feature under that studio
comedy brand. Indeed, Barr has little time for the pre-1948 comedies, those
featuring Will Hay, George Formby and Tommy Trinder, despite this film (and The Goose Steps Out, 1942) being co-directed
by Basil Dearden, one of Michael Balcon’s stalwart lieutenants during his time
at Ealing. In that sense, these films (particularly those of Formby and Hay)
are often seen as star-driven vehicles rather than true ‘Ealing’ films (despite
the inherent vagueness and uncertainty over exactly what that term means).
The film is not coy about its star-laden qualities,
opening with a ‘Will Hay in...’ title, featuring the star as five different
‘characters’ (in effect, one character who adopts four disguises), and building
almost all the set pieces around Hays’ brand of verbal and visual humour. Despite this, however, the film feels too beholden to its mistaken identity-wartime
spy plot to give Hay the opportunity to really let rip, and the accompanying
‘trade agreement’ narrative feels very staid and bland, hard to enliven even
with Hay’s blustering and an anarchic car chase.
The film is about Davis (Hay), an actor-turned-bad
educator, whose pursuit of a broken contract with Jessop (John Mills) leads him
to the Ministry of International Commerce where a conference on South American
trade is awaiting the arrival of British expert Professor Davys (Henry Hewitt).
Davys is kidnapped by enemy agents, and replaced by Crabtree (Felix Aylmer),
who intends to sabotage British trade agreements in concert with journalist /
spy Costello (Basil Sydney). Following a mistaken identity incident around Davis /
Davys, Jessop realises the ‘real’ Prof. Davys has been kidnapped and blackmails
Davis into helping him track down and rescue the real professor, thus saving the
conference and the country.
It is enjoyable to see a young John Mills caught up in
the chaos, essentially playing a straight man to Hay’s mad professor, and bullying
Hay into various disguises (Scotland Yard detective, hotel porter, train ticket
collector, and female nurse) in their joint pursuit of the Nazi spies who are
trying to derail the conference. Mills plays Jessop as young, cocky, and
confident – he’s no simple stooge, operating as the main vehicle for pushing the plot
forward – and is a nice contrast to the sometimes stuffy Hay. The other
characters / supporting actors are solid, but few stand out – although Costello
does have a fun recurring joke in that he half-recognises
Davis/Hay in all his disguises, but assumes it is some incredibly vast family
he keeps running into.
There are nice visual gags scattered through the film (a
man helps Hay into his coat and hat, before repossessing the hat stand they
were hanging on; the delivery boy who gets so sick of being knocked off his
bike during the car chase that he throws his packages on the ground for the
spies to drive over) but the slapstick can also feel forced, notably in the
lengthy care home sequence where Hay’s cross-dressing as a nurse leads to
entirely predictable results (prefiguring Carry
on Doctor by almost two decades!), or the lengthy car chase sequence that
makes up the final 10-15 minutes of the film (and which ends with a largely unrelated
bomb explosion). What makes the final sequence so interesting is it is
obviously where the film’s (limited?) budget went, as it is the only section
filmed outside – elsewhere, the plot bounces from set to set, using back projection
for scenes on a train (and, to be fair, for several of the car chase scenes as
well), but here, there is actual outdoor filming at the nursing home, and in
many of the car-based chase gags. This is less a criticism (particularly as
this is mainly noticeable because of the location-heavy filming I’ve seen in
later Ealing films) more an interesting note that might relate to the limited
budget such films had to play with in the early 1940s.
The film also features a dramatisation of the rival
medium of radio, notably the recording of a BBC Home Service interview where
Hay prattles on about economics, unaware he’s been mistaken for the real
Professor Davys. This interview is conducted by real BBC presenter Leslie
Mitchell, host of BBC TV show Picture Page,
but is obviously a set piece for Hay’s bluster and surreal response to
questions about economics. What is most curious, apart from a possible dig at
the BBC being unprepared, is that both Mitchell and the engineer faint and
collapse during the interview, for no apparent reason. (presumably exhausted by Hay's never-ending stream of consciousness chatter)
As is probably obvious, I wasn’t completely convinced by
this film – it isn't a strong performance from Hay, and the plot-heavy nature of the film detracts
from the occasionally funny verbal back-and-forth and visual routine-based comedy that
I think would shine in other situations (the plot is also a little dull, and has a curiously leaden pace). The title is also a little misleading
– maybe I was expecting some kind of civil service/governmental slapstick,
instead of this wartime spy thriller-comedy.
However, as it would be unfair to dismiss Hay based on this one outing,
I’ve decided to go for a Hay double bill: watch out early next week for a post on his earlier
Ealing hit, The Ghost of St. Michael’s (1941)...
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