The last film of Will Hay’s career (although not the last
time we’ll see Hay on this challenge, with The
Goose Steps Out (1942) and The Big
Blockade (1942) still to come), this is a fantastic little black
comedy-thriller that speeds through its plot with a series of slapstick
routines, strong performances, a great final sequence on the clock face of Big
Ben, and a film-stealing turn from Ealing stalwart Mervyn Johns, who pushes the
balance of homicidal and hysterical seen in his The Next of Kin (1942) character to darkly comic extremes.
The film re-teams Hay and Claude Hulbert (last seen
together in 1941s The Ghost of St. Michael’s),
here playing seedy but canny conman (and ex-lawyer) William Finch (Hay) and
hopelessly inept lawyer Babbington (Hulbert). Babbington’s eager and naive
persona is established by an early scene where he plays with toy cars on the
floor of chambers, and he soon fails to successfully prosecute Finch for his
latest money-grabbing scheme. The two team up, however, when ex-con psychopath
Arthur Grimshaw (Mervyn Johns) bumps into them in a pub and reveals he is going
to kill the six people responsible for incarcerating him. These ‘six little
dramas of retribution’ will end with Finch, but the first five names are
unknown. The film becomes a race against time, as Finch and Babbington try to
track down the other names (judges, witnesses, medical experts from the trial),
and stop Grimshaw’s murderous scheme.
The narrative is not overly original, but one beautiful
addition pushes it beyond the ordinary: Grimshaw keeps popping up to mock and
help Finch and Babbington, leaving riddles and clues for them to decipher, and
point them in the right direction. In the wrong hands, that role could have fallen
flat, but Johns is exceptional, pitching his performance perfectly, adding in demented
Peter Lorre-esque twitches, all breathy, slow-spoken at certain points, occasionally
eager and giggling, and then matter-of-face and logical at others. Having seen
him play evil (The Next of Kin), pent
up (Pink String and Sealing Wax, 1945)
and ‘average man’ (San Demetrio, London,
1943), it is fun to see him let rip with a character that is a force of black
comic energy, stopping inches short of winking at the camera every time he
appears (and there are a couple of half-glances at camera, particularly when he
takes off a fake moustache after the second murder, that drifts closest to that
edge). Grimshaw describes himself as an artist at one point, and it is to
Johns’ credit that this character is not the one-note madman he could have
been. While Hay and Hulbert have the bulk of the obviously comic business, it
is Johns’ manic and murderous glint that is at the film’s heart.
Outside of the central performances, the film is as straightforward
as other Ealing comedies, whether they starred Formby, Trinder or Hay.
Structured around set pieces, most in one or two simple stage sets (offices,
corridors, bars: there are only about three location shots in the whole film),
we see Finch and Babbington fail to stop Grimshaw from murdering ‘Safety’
Wilson (Charles Victor), protect the wrong girl (Maudie Edwards), inadvertently
help kill Dr. Scudamore (G.H. Mulcaster), and then try to prevent the bombing
of the House of Lords. There are some moments where the broader comedy
threatens to derail the whole project: an extended sequence in a theatre where
‘Aladdin’ is being performed (and where Finch and Babbington – in borrowed
costumes – wreak havoc on the theatrical performance), or one among psychiatric
patients (including big game hunter Colonel Chudleigh (Lloyd Pearson) and
practical joker Mr Ferris (Ernest Thesiger), but the film maintains a brisk pace
throughout, so that such moments are quickly discarded.
The final sequence, which takes place on two elaborate
sets (the inner workings of Big Ben, with over sized cogs and wheels; and the
external clock-face itself), is a bravura piece of slapstick, chase scene,
performance, and tensely edited drama that deserves to be better known within
British cinema. The influence of Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last (1923) is obvious, but there are also echoes of
Hitchcock in the placing of a final dramatic sequence on such a well-known
national landmark. True, this is done for comic effect, but the use of the
clock-face as a surface to scramble over, hang from, and protect, is
particularly strong here.
George Perry has noted the more callous and cynical tone
of this film, and both he and Charles Barr have suggested a tempting link
between this film and Ealing’s more famous multiple-murder spree, 1949s Kind Hearts and Coronets (both
co-written by John Dighton). Yet while both tend to see this as a lesser
run-through of similar material, that tends to ignore the strengths of this
film, strengths that deserve to be more central to discussions of the darker
comic side of Ealing Studios.
Next time, a Valentine's Day treat (?) as we explore The Captive Heart (1946)...
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