PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Goose Steps Out 1942

The Goose Steps Out is a 1942 Will Hay movie. Bernard Miles and Reg Groves had the idea, Angus MacPhail and John Dighton turned that idea into a screenplay, Basil Dearden and Will Hay share the directing credit. Will co-directed three films with Basil, he might have gone onto direct more of his own films but his failing health ended his career. Cancer and a stroke crippled him but he managed to rally and he hung on until 1949.

 

The Goose Steps Out is set during the Second World War. Will is William Potts and he turns out to be the exact double of a German spy. That same spy is in British custody  and the War Office wants Potts to impersonate the spy. He's to travel to Germany and steal info on a new German secret weapon. In Germany Potts is put to work teaching young German spies all about the UK. Charles Hawtrey, William Hartnell, Peter Ustinov and Barry Morse are cast members I knew.

It's a nice slap in the puss to the Fuhrer and there are some other good jokes too. The film was popular at a time that people were pretty down and it still holds up fairly well. I laughed and was glad to have picked up the DVD. I will have a Will Hay film festival someday.

Delightfully Dangerous 1945

Delightfully Dangerous is a 1945 film about life in the world of Broadway and Burlesque. Jane Powell's sister, Constance Moore, has gone off to New York to be in the theater, turns out she's a burlesque star. Constance comes home to see Jane in the school show. She meets Ralph Bellamy there, he's a Broadway producer on the look out for talent. Constance returns to New York. Jane follows shortly after, she wants to see her sister on stage. She's in for a surprise. Her sister's got her legs on show and Jane is distraught.

That's Jane Powell on the left and the other lady is Ruth Tobey. Eventually the script will sort out all the problems with a bit of romance and plenty of song. I wasn't too keen on the song but I liked the romantic comedy. It was fun enough to watch, it's mostly a good solid film. Re-watchable.

Banana Ridge 1942

Banana Ridge is another film from The British Film series from Network. It came out April 20 1942. It's based on a 1938 play of the same name by Ben Travers. Director Walter C Mycroft co-wrote the screenplay with Lesley Storm. It's the second of four films for director Mycroft. He would produce over 90 films and write 17. I can't say many seem familiar. Same with Lesley Storm, though I did recieve a copy of the 1952 Edgar Wallace film The Ringer. I'll try to get to that soon as I want to see how different it is to The Gaunt Stranger.

A woman comes asking a couple of rubber barons to give her son a job. The three guys in the picture are Stewart Rome, Alfred Drayton and Robertson Hare. The latter two are the businessmen with the rubber business. She hints that the son could be one of their offspring, both men think they could be. They both were in the Army together back in WW1. She won't say for sure who's the daddy. They give the young man a job only to find he's a bit of a draw for the ladies. They don't care for that much so they send him off to Malaysia to work on one of their plantations. He pulls the birds there too. It's all silly romantic comedy stuff with plenty of jokes and goofy characters. I enjoyed it. It comes with another film that's up soon. Hope it's as entertaining.

The Huggetts Abroad 1949

The Huggetts Abroad is the four film with the Huggett family and it came out in 1949. Ken Annakin directs, Keith Campbell wrote the story, Gerard Bryant and Ted Willis wrote the screenplay.

Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison are dad and mom, Dinah Sheridan, Susan Shaw and Petula Clark are the three daughters. One of the daughter's wants to move to South Africa with her new nubby but they miss the ship. The family buys a truck and pack everyone off to South Africa.

It's not quite as entertaining as the first three films but I managed to enjoy it well enough. The film didn't do as well as the others at the box office and that was the end of the series. Now the DVDs can be put away until I get around to them again. All in all I'd recommend the series especially for the film film Holiday Camp.

Michael Shayne - The Complete PRC Mystery Collection

Classic Flix from Lincoln California packed the 5 Michael Shayne films starring Hugh Beaumont in a one disc set called Michael Shayne - The Complete PRC Mystery Collection. They are all short, 60 to 68 minutes, and black and white, so they don't look that bad. I don't think Classic Flix spent a whole lot of restoring the films but they are all watchable.

There had been an earlier series of 7 Michael Shane movies, with Lloyd Nolan, for 20th Century-Fox. Four of them are available in a DVD set. I have that to watch sometime soon. I hope I can find the other three films. I need to look around on the internet I guess. After 20th dropped the series, Producers Releasing Corporation picked it up, they did 5 films with Hugh Beaumont. Brett Halliday wrote the novels, I've read 2 or 3 over the years but he wasn't a novelist I kept up with. The movies are loosely based on the novels or characters.

Murder Is My Business 1946 Screenplay Fred Myton, director Sam Newfield, producer Sigmund Neufeld. Sam and Sigmund were brothers. Sam is considered one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood. He started directing in 1926 and he has 277 credits on the IMDb, his career ended in 1964 when he passed away at age 64. His output is mostly low budget films, shot quickly for little money, but some are entertaining. A number of them turn up in those public domain multi film DVD packs. I've seen a bunch of his Westerns and can't complain, they're B pictures but totally watchable. Same with the Mike Shayne pictures.

Hugh plays Michael, Cheryl Walker plays his secretary and romantic interest Phyllis Hamilton, Lyle Talbot plays a brother, Ralph Dunn plays an annoyed cop and George Meeker plays a gigolo. Virginia Christine has a small part, she would later play Mrs Olson in the Folger's Coffee Ads.

Michael comes to the aid of a pal who's been accused of murdering a rich woman. Her family are pretty suspect and Mike works on them. Ralph Dunn is the annoyed police detective Pete Rafferty, he's sure he's going to pin something on that crooked PI someday.

Hugh's Shayne is a peanut eating laid back sort of guy who plays pretty loosely with the law. He's not ashamed to hold back some evidence or steal something from the scene of the murder. He gets the job done and in record time. It's a pretty casual film that was fun to watch. Onto the next.

Larceny in Her Heart 1946 Screenplay Raymond L Schrock, director Sam Newfield, producer Sigmund Neufeld. Sigmund produced 146 pictures and directed 12 shorts.

Mike gets hired by a man to find his missing daughter, he does, she's in an asylum. Mike goes undercover as a patient to find her. Cheryl Walker returns as Mike's secretary as does Ralph Dunn as Detective Rafferty. Paul Bryar joins Mike's gang as Tim Rourke, a reporter for the local paper. Nothing outstanding but still entertaining. It kept me interested and it's short so they don't waste any time.

Blonde for a Day 1946Screenplay Fred Myton, director Sam Newfield, producer Sigmund Neufeld.

Kathryn Adams plays Michael's secretary. In real life she was Hugh Beaumont's wife. They married in 1942 and she retired from acting. She returned for this one picture. They were married until 1974 when they divorced. Cy Kendall takes over the role of Detective Pet Rafferty, Paul Bryar returns as the news paper guy Tim Rourke.

Michael's moved to San Francisco for some unknown to us reason but he returns when reporter pal Tim is shot. He in the hospital, near death. A gambling syndicate is behind it all and Mike's got his hands full punching those guys. There's a fair bit of rough housing in the series and most of the fights are fair to good. Same with everything in the series really. Still they are watchable pot boilers that have a good sense of humor. That can stretch a budget pretty well, in the right hands. I enjoyed this one too.

Three on a Ticket 1947 Screenplay Fred Myton, director Sam Newfield, producer Sigmund Neufeld. Cheryl Walker is back as Hugh's secretary, same with Ralph Dunn and Paul Bryar.

A PI Hugh used to know drops dead in Hugh's office, Hugh skims 10 Gs and a small piece of cardboard off the dead guy. He beats it, leaving Cheryl to call the cops. A woman asks Hugh to bump off her husband. Crooks looking for that piece of cardboard come a knocking, they knock Hugh out. He's used to it and it doesn't stop him from solving the case. He's nice and he dumps the credit to his long suffering police pal Rafferty. Another one I enjoyed.

Too Many Winners 1947 Screenplay John Sutherland, director William Beaudine, producer John Sutherland. William has even more credits on the IMDb than Sam Newfield. William started directing in 1915 and he directed 147 shorts before moving to feature films in 1922. He made over 30 silent films, over 150 talkies, and over 200 episodes of TV. He's one of my heroes of film.

Hugh plays Michael for the last time, Trudy Marshall plays Hugh's secretary for the first and last time, Ralph Dunn plays Rafferty for the last time.

All Mike's trouble in failing to go on vacation stems from the local horse racing track. Some crook has figured out how to counterfeit the betting tickets and the track is paying out way too much money. They hire Mike to look into it. The crooks aren't happy and send someone over to talk to Mike. There's the usual punching and dead bodies but Mike manages to pull his fat out of the fire and solve the case before Rafferty. He still gives Rafferty the newspaper credit. It was about as much fun as the rest and in the end I was glad to have picked up a copy. I'll watch these over again.

Vote For Huggett 1949

 

Vote For Huggett is the third of the Huggett's movies, it came out in 1949. It's produced by Betty E Box, it's directed by Ken Annakin, the writers are Mabel Constanduros, Denis Constanduros and Allan MacKinnon.

Jack Warner, Kathleen Harrison, Susan Shaw, Petula Clarke, David Tomlinson, Diana Dors, Peter Hammond, Anthony Newley and Clive Morton are cast members I knew.

Jack writes the local paper calling for a community center and lido to be built by the council and he gets a good response back. A local councilor wants to have his own project on the same land and he works against Jack and his project. It's a nice poke at local politics and there are a few jokes that were fun. The characters are likeable. Glad to have seen it. One more to go. Someday I'll watch them all over again.

It's Not Cricket 1949

It's Not Cricket is a 1949 British comedy starring Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne. They were Charters and Caldicott in The Lady Vanishes. It was the first of four appearances as the pair of cricket fans. They appeared in a dozen films together but this is only the second where they get star billing. The other was the 1941 film Crook's Tour. I enjoy the pair.

It's Not Cricket was one of the last films that were made under the Gainsborough Pictures banner before they merged with the Rank Organization. It's directed by Roy Rich and Alfred Roome, the screenplay is by Lyn Lockwood and Bernard McNabb with some additional scenes by Gerard Bryant. This is Roy's first film, he only directed a handful of TV films after. Alfred was mostly an editor, he edited this film, and more importantly, for me anyway, he edited most of the Carry On movies after 1967. He edited Holiday Camp, Hotel Sahara, The 39 Steps (1959), Deadlier Than The Male and several others I haven't seen. Lyn and Bernard only wrote one other film, A Piece Of Cake in 1948. Bernard was a writer and a director, he wrote the screenplay to The Huggetts Abroad the same year.

Basil and Naunton are in Military Intelligence, they are stationed in post WW2 Germany when we meet up with them. They are going on leave and little do they suspect that their batman is really an escaped German war criminal named Otto. That gets found out and they are Demobbed and sent home to London. In need of work they set up a detective agency, three months later they have had no work but they've hired Susan Shaw as their secretary. Nigel Buchanan plays a man the detectives knew from the Military. Nigel meets Sally and dropping her off at the office he discovers his old army pals. Nigel invites them for a cricket weekend out at his family's big manor house in the country.

Diana Dors pops in for a brief scene, she was applying for the secretary job but didn't get it. Otto turns up again, he's stolen a diamond, but his contact let it slip out of his hand, he'd hidden it in a cricket ball, it got sold accidentally to Nigel. It's chaos at the cricket match when Otto and his pal turn up. Still, Basil and Naunton manage to catch Otto and return the diamond, business is good for them. There's a fair number of jokes and I even laughed out loud a couple of times. It's low key but entertaining to me. I downloaded a copy from YouTube but it seems to have disappeared in the interim. I'm temped to buy the DVD from the UK, it's pricey, 30-35 smackaroonies, so the download will do for now.

Here Come The Huggetts 1948

Here Come The Huggetts is the first of three sequels about the Huggett family from Holiday Camp. HCTH came out in 1948 and it was directed by Ken Annakin. He directed Holiday Camp in 1947, the following year he directed Miranda, Broken Journey, The Colonel's Lady segment of Quartet, and HCTH. There were two more Huggett family films in 1949 as well as a movie called Landfall. I've seen Miranda and enjoyed it quite a bit, Glynis Johns is a mermaid, there's a sequel called Mad About Men, it's entertaining but it's not directed by Ken. All four of the Huggetts films are collected in a DVD set in the UK. You can buy one on Amazon for $12.54 with free shipping but you'd need to be able to play region 2 DVDs.

Back to HCTH, the screenplay was written by Mabel Constanduros, Denis Constanduros and Peter Rogers. Muriel Box and Sidney Box are given an uncredited writing credit on the IMDb. Muriel and Sidney were husband and wife film makers, Betty Box was Sidney's sister. At the time of HCTH they were working at Gainsborough Pictures which was part of The Rank Organization. They shot their pictures at Islington Studios and later Lime Grove Studios. When Gainsborough got closed in 1949 the BBC bought Lime Grove and eventually made Doctor Who there.

Jack Warner plays Joe Huggett and Kathleen Harrison plays his wife Ethel. Joe's moved up at the Campbell's cereal company and he's decided they need a phone for work purposes. Kathleen's not too keen but her three daughters are more than happy to have a phone. The Huggetts have three daughters in this series, unlike Holiday Camp in which they had a son and a daughter.

That's the three daughters, left to right are Susan Shaw, Jane Hylton and Petula Clark. When I saw Petula Clark on TV singing Downtown back in 1964, I didn't have any idea she'd been singing for 20 years. She was 16 when she was in HCTH, in the previous four years she'd already sang on BBC Radio and appeared in 8 films.

Jane has a dilemma, her boyfriend has been away at the war and he's coming home with marriage in mind, she's not too sure. Her friend David Tomlinson would like to see her walk up the aisle with him, she's not too sure of him either. There's another wedding in the film, Princess Elizabeth is marrying Prince Phillip, the Huggetts want to go. They camp out overnight near Buckingham Palace to get a good place.

Diana Dors plays the Huggett family's niece, she's pretty much a selfish asshole who can't do much of anything other than coast on her looks. Diana was the youngest student at LAMDA and she would have a fairly lengthy career, starting in 1947 and ending with her death in 1985, she was only 52 years old.

No one's happy to have Diana in the house but her mother is sick so they muddle on. Ethel gets Joe to get Diana a job at the Campbell company and she screws up stuff for Joe. Lucky for him that all works out well in the end. It's a nice easy going comedy with fun characters and a good solid script. I was glad to have seen it and it will be one I will want to watch again.

Holiday Camp 1947

Holiday Camp is a British comedy about the goings on at a holiday camp. The movie came out in 1947 and the camp used in the film is the Butlins Holiday Camp in Filey North Yorkshire. I've heard of Butlins before this, British comedians have worked at the camps as entertainment staff. I think the American equivalent would be the holiday resorts in the Catskills. The camps are pretty well contained, there are little cabins to stay in, the food is included, there's a pool, dancing, entertainment and many, many, many people. It looks very crowed there, I doubt I would like it.

Holiday Camp is the first of four movies with the Huggett family and they came packed in a 4 disc set from the UK. You need a special all-region DVD player to play them, or a copy of VLC Player on a PC with a DVD player. I had the one in my PC fail recently and purchased a LG DVD player that plugs in with a USB cable. It plays fine and was only $27. There isn't a US release but you can find them on YouTube from time to time.

The Huggett family aren't the main characters in this film, many other characters share their story lines. Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison play Mr and Mrs Huggett, Hazel Court plays their daughter Joan and Peter Hammond plays their son Harry. Flora Robson plays a spinster who decides she wants a change in vacation spots, Dennis Price plays a bit of cad, Esma Cannon plays a spinster with a tragic future. There's a couple who aren't married but will soon need to be, a pair of card sharps who take and be taken, a murderer who's being chased by the law and a camp announcer with a tragic past.

It's a well crafted story with a nice mix of comedy and drama, it get sentimental but never too melodramatic. Godfrey Winn came up with the original story, he and director Ken Annakin stayed at the camp in the movie to see what it was like. Producers Sydney and Muriel Box wrote the screenplay with Peter Rogers. The was also additional dialog from Mabel Constanduros, Denis Constanduros and Ted Willis.

Holiday Camp was Ken's first movie, his career started with the 1943 short London 1942 and ended in 2009 with Genghis Khan: The Story Of A Lifetime. He directed a good number of hits and some live action films for Disney. He directed Miranda right after HC, that was an entertaining movie too. I enjoyed the first Huggetts film and look forward to the rest of the series.

My Learned Friend 1943

My Learned Friend is Will Hay's last movie, it came out in 1943. Angus MacPhail and John Dighton wrote the screenplay and Basil Dearden and Will Hay directed. Will got cancer and he didn't work in films anymore. It's too bad, it's one of my favorites of Will's films.

That's Claude Hulbert, Mervyn Johns and Will Hay, left to right. Will's a shady barrister, we first meet him in court where he talks his way out of trouble, Claude is the barrister trying to convict him. Mervyn is a forger who had Will for his defense. Will had lost that case and Mervyn went to jail. Now he's out and he tells Will and Claude he's interested in executing those who put him behind bars. At first he convinces Will he's joking but then he sends Will a newspaper with a story about the very same Judge at the trail being drowned in a river. The note from Mervyn asks if the judge fell or was pushed.

For some reason Claude joins Will in trying to warn the other victims before Mervyn gets his hands on them. They aren't very successful and there are 3 more murders. Now Mervyn is after Claude and Will. There's plenty of running about and activity with the trio winding up inside Big Ben. Mervyn has rigged the clock to blow up boxes of dynamite under the Houses of Parliament. At one point they've all crawled out onto the face of the clock. Lucky the Bobbies arrive to save Will and Claude from death.

It's nicely dark and there's a great mix of crime and comedy. Some say that it was the template for future, darker Ealing comedies like The Lady Killers and Kind Hearts and Coronets. There's plenty of killing and some of the murders are rather inventive. Will and Claude are fun together and Mervyn does a nice murderous lunatic. There's plenty of other enjoyable characters for them to interact with, their dialog is entertaining and so their physical comedy. There's some action and one of the better bar room brawls that isn't in a western. It would have been nice to have several more Will Hay comedies that were as good as this. It wasn't too be so I'll have to be happy with the lot I have. Glad I picked this up, I'll run it again.