Keep Your Seats, Please!

'Keep Your Seats, Please' is based on the same Russian novel that inspired both Mel Brooks's film 'The Twelve Chairs' and Fred Allen's most hilarious movie 'It's in the Bag!'. The latter was largely written by none other than Alma Reville (Mrs Alfred Hitchcock), who must surely have been familiar with the earlier 'Keep Your Seats, Please'.

This hilarious George Formby vehicle has a couple of interesting "degrees of separation", due to the film's leading lady and director. Florence Desmond was the only actress to work with both George Formby AND Will Rogers, two very different comedians. Monty Banks, who helmed this film, was the only person ever to direct a George Formby movie AND a Laurel and Hardy movie. Banks had an amazing career: he attained near-stardom as an actor in American silent films before moving to Britain and marrying none other than our Gracie Fields. A native of Italy, he was interned as an 'enemy alien' during the war.

In 'Keep Your Seats, Please', Formby's character is named George Withers (any relation to Googie?). He plays his usual chancer, skint and gormless with it ... except that, this time round, he has an eccentric aunt who's wealthy. George is her favourite nephew, but she has a squadron of other relations who are eager to grab her estate. So, Aunt Georgina Withers sews £90,000 worth of jewellery and bonds into the cushion of a chair to keep them safe for George. Wait a minute: couldn't she just GIVE him the dosh? Perhaps she's afraid that her other relations will contest the gift. Anyway, don't look for logic in this film. The chair is one of an identical set. It's bang obvious what will happen: the chairs get sent to different locations, and George must track down each one to find the fortune. (Which of course is in the very last chair ... or is it?) A certain irrelevant character keeps turning up everyplace, so it's obvious that this irrelevant character will become important at the climax.

Florence Desmond was a beautiful comedienne and impressionist, but she's given very little to do here. In Britain at this time, she had a popular comedy recording -- 'Hollywood Party' -- in which Desmond imitated several British and American movie stars. It's a shame she's given no real chance to shine in this movie, despite singing one dull song. Given far too much chance to shine here (and too little talent to shine it with) is little Binkie Stuart, who was known in the 1930s as "Britain's Shirley Temple". Binkie is indeed very nearly a lookalike for Shirley, and has a very similar screen presence while speaking dialogue. The resemblance ends when Binkie attempts to sing and dance. As a singer and dancer, Binkie Stuart makes Shirley Temple look like Ginger Rogers.

There's a fine supporting cast here, headed by Gus McNaughton in a role that reminded me of Leon Errol. Alastair Sim was a unique performer who never imitated anyone (although Alec Guinness imitated Sim in 'The Ladykillers'), yet here -- as a vaguely Dickensian lawyer -- Sim reminds me of the American character actors John Brown and Fred Clark. George Formby typically played a coward on-screen, so here it's a real pleasure to see him deliberately punch Sim. Harry Tate is a bit too 'busy' here as an auctioneer, although Enid Stamp-Taylor is good as an elocution teacher ... trilling her lines in the voice and accent that Billie Burke spent her entire career trying to develop!

Although comedian Formby always got the girl in his movies, he had to do so very chastely: Formby's real-life wife Beryl (the Peril) was a termagant, who constantly hovered on the sets of his films to make sure that George and his leading lady never kissed, even in character! Considering the enforced chasteness of Formby's movies, 'Keep Your Seats, Please' is surprisingly erotic. George and Florence 'meet cute' by waking up in the same bedroom (in separate twin beds); each one having kipped since the previous night without knowing that the other was there. In another scene, Tom Payne comes home to find his wife and Sim 'asleep' in bed together ... actually they've both been knocked unconscious, but Payne's reaction is hilarious.

Near the film's climax, Alastair Sim passes up a chance for a "spit-take": his character is startled while supping a drink, but he merely drops the glass. Perhaps British exhibitors in 1936 felt that a spit-take would have been too vulgar.

George Formby is not for all tastes: not even for all British tastes. He speaks in an 'oop North' dialect: for instance, in this movie he says 'you and all' rather than 'you too'. But, during an early scene in 'Keep Your Seats, Please', I shuddered in nostalgic pleasure at an achingly authentic shot of a milkie calling his morning rounds in a pre-Blitz English street. 'Keep Your Seats, Please' is Formby at his finest, and I'll rate this fast-paced comedy 8 out of 10.

Out of work and dossing around, George (George Formby), the favourite nephew of a favourite wealthy aunt (Dame May Whitty) is left a secret inheritance after the aunt dies, but the cheque has been sewn into a seat that has been auctioned off with many of her other possessions. George learns of this and learning that all seven dining room chairs have been sold separately seeks them out.

Turned into a Formby vehicle from a novel by Ilya Ilf and adapted by regular Formby writer Anthony Kimmins and Thomas J. Geraghty and Ian Hay, this is a good early star turn as Formby/Kimmins still tries to find the formula that works for his films. There are plenty of laughs and set pieces, some quite hilarious. Produced by Basil Dean, Formby even gets to sing one of his best known songs, 'When I'm Cleaning Windows'.

Daft ha'p'orth George Formby tries to claim a fortune left him by a rich aunt hidden in one of a set of chairs - but the chairs get sold at auction and split up, prompting a frantic runaround. Gus McNaughton is his sly accomplice whose cut rises from 10% to 100% during the course of the operation. Alistair Sim is also after the stash. George gets to twang "When I'm Cleaning Windows" and a couple of other saucy numbers. Most remarkable is the first appearance of Britain's answer to Shirley Temple, Binkie Stuart, who at 3 years old is singing, dancing and cracking jokes - a bit of an eye-opener. Quite worthwhile, and with a surprisingly satisfying ending.

KEEP YOUR SEATS, PLEASE! Is an early Ealing comedy starring George Formby, and it's most notable for being the one where he sings his most famous ukelele song, 'When I'm Cleaning Windows', in a scene randomly shoehorned into the narrative. That set-piece is indeed the highlight of the movie, but the rest is amiable enough, a typical character-focused comedy about a hidden inheritance and some unscrupulous villains trying to get their hands on it. Formby is certainly an acquired taste but I found him quite likeable in a goofy way in this one, and you do get the treat of an early Alistair Sim role where the actor plays - what else? - a villain.

George Formby is okay as the comic lead in this and most of his other films. But this film is just mildly humorous. What makes it watchable at all is the interesting plot in which Formby's George Withers is in a race with a crooked solicitor (attorney) to find a treasure. His aunt stuffed her jewelry and cash in a chair before she died, rather than let her greedy relatives get anything. In her will, she said that she was donating everything to charity. But in a separate letter to her nephew George Withers, she tells him where to find the treasure she had hidden for him. He was her only relative who wasn't greedy and trying to get at her wealth.

When George gets the letter, his aunt's furniture had already gone to an auction house. But he doesn't have the money to pay for the chairs so he goes to his aunt's solicitor, A. S. Drayton (played by Alastair Sim). Instead of helping him, Drayton burns the letter and goes after the loot himself. So the race is on to find the loot and it's the source of most of the comedy. George gets help from a young woman, Florrie, and a shyster, Max.

People who like these and other members of the cast in the movies will probably enjoy this film. Formby has his frequent banjo in the film and plays and sings a couple of songs - one of which is the title of this film, "Keep Your Seats, Please." It's doubtful that many others will. The six stars are simply because the cast are all quite good in their roles, and there is some comedy in antics with Withers and Drayton.

Here's my favorite exchange of humor in this film. Aunt Georgina Withers (May Whitty), "But probably you've never studied chairs... You've never realized their importance in our lives.... Chairs - the parts they play in our life. A young man, aspiring to a chair on the board of directors, (unintelligible), and what do we find on the other side of the Atlantic?" A. S. Drayton, "America?" Aunt Withers, "No! The electric chair. And, on this side?" Drayton, "Indians?" Aunt Withers, "The greatest chair of all - the throne."