Watching this in close proximity to Sailors Three (1940), and given that some of the crew remain the
same – noteably screenwriters Angus Macphail and John Dighton – it is clear that Ealing
never felt the need to move too far from a popular pattern. Here, the mistaken
identity plot from The Black Sheep of
Whitehall (1942) is mixed with the reluctant spy elements of Let George Do It (1940) and a scattering
of the mischievous schoolboy aspects of The
Ghost of St Michaels (1941). However, while Sailors Three was solid but unmemorable, this film combines comic
sequences with more dramatic concepts to add to its humour – however, it also
remains frustratingly incomplete on DVD...
When British Military Intelligence realise William Potts
(Will Hay) is the double of German spy Mueller, Potts reluctantly agrees to
take on Mueller’s identity and position at the German university where inventor
Professor Hoffman (Frank Pettingell) is working on a secret new bomb. At the
university, it is Hay’s usual comic business: schoolmaster Potts attempts to
mislead a class of young German spies, including Max (Charles Hawtrey), Krauss
(Peter Ustinov), and Kurt (Barry Morse); he befriends Hoffman so as to learn
about the bomb, annoys the officious Schmidt (Raymond Lovell), and meets
important General von Glotz (Julien Mitchell). Stealing one of Hoffman’s new
gas-fire bombs (which Glotz intends to use in the attack on Britain), Potts is
helped by several of his students – Austrian students who allege their country
has been enslaved by Germany – the film ends in a series of comic set-pieces,
first on a train and then a plane spiralling out-of-control towards Britain.
Given the DVD I watched clocked in at a very swift 65
minutes, it appeared as though the film had no fat on it whatsoever, skipping
quickly from scene to scene, and not really lingering on any element – but that
was not the original length or intention of the film (although not the most
reliable of measures, both IMDb and Lovefilm list it at 79 minutes). If ignorant
of that fact, the film isn’t noticeably reduced by the cuts – it still makes
sense, even if the transitions are a little clunky in places – but the clips of
some of the missing sections available on YouTube do reveal some of the strong
verbal wordplay that Hay was known for – a cut from the classroom discussion on
pronouncing English place names (‘Sluff’ and ‘Slough’), and another from the
train discussion about Panzer-pincer movement. From my brief research, the
reasons for these cuts (or, indeed, when they occurred) still appear unknown –
it could be like the DVD release of Whisky
Galore!, where an American print was used (British films were often slimmed
down to B-picture lengths of 60-65 minutes for U.S. distribution).
Perhaps the most interesting point here is that I didn’t
initially think I had seen an incomplete film in terms of missing pieces of
existing scenes (as happened); rather, I suspected that several promising
sub-plots had been dropped along the way: Hay rarely gets any romantic interest
in his films, so the removal of his spy contact Lena Shuven (Anne Firth) is
hardly a surprise; but the lack of a subplot where the ‘real’ Mueller reappears
seems an unlikely oversight simply because of its ubiquity in such plots; the
disappearance of both Schmidt and Hoffman from the final third of the film is
also noticeable; while the final escape feels too easy, with Hay and his
students successfully (if haphazardly) flying their plane back to Britain.
Either due to its topic or production context (still at
an uncertain point of the war for Britain), the tone of the film can be
schizophrenic. There are moments – most obviously when Potts is stealing a bomb
from Hoffman’s laboratory – that rely heavily on thriller tenets as much as
comic ones. While Hay stumbling around in a protective padded suit is
inherently comic, it is used for dramatic purposes as well – he is trapped in
the building, alarms going off, the suit making him easy to locate for the
pursuing soldiers. In most cases, any inherent drama is undercut by humour:
here, Hoffman (in a similar suit) is mistakenly ambushed by the soldiers,
allowing Potts to escape; while the final plane-out-of-control sequence
(featuring strong special effects model work) is counterpointed with more comic
music to reduce any real tension.
As noted above (and similar to Sailors Three) the ‘good’ Germanic type – the Austrian – becomes a
key feature, with Potts’ students desperate to escape to Britain. Comedy German
stereotypes are also out in force: beer drinking, officiousness, excessive
saluting, precision, marching... yet the film still finds time to gently mock
English stereotypes (the German students think everyone speaks in upper class
accents, Hay’s approach to undercover work is to get blind drunk, and Hay
remains a buffoon, supported by cleverer Austrian students). Of course, British
behaviour wins out in these debates – the Germans are unaware what a
two-fingered salute really means (particularly when directed at an image of
Hitler) – but it is another sign that Ealing didn’t always fit into the obvious
good/bad binaries we expect from war films.
Given the strong performance from Hay, good supporting
work from Hawtrey, and a plot that creates fun and dramatic set-pieces, this
has all the pieces that should build a strong film: the absence of all the key
scenes, however, mean that the full experience is currently lacking.
Next time, the blog hits the halfway point with - what else - The Halfway House (1944)!
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