Take a Chance

This British supporting comedy has turned up after decades in obscurity in volume seven of Network's excellent R.2 'Ealing Rarities' collection. A gimcrack plot concerns a racehorse owner's dilemma of whether to withdraw his star nag from the big race, after discovering his wife has leaked info to her lover, a big-time gambler.

Main drawback for me was the performances of stars Binnie Hale and 'silly ass' Claude Hulbert, neither of whom seemed funny, perhaps as I couldn't understand what they were saying half the time as they gabbled away. The glamorous Enid Stamp Taylor as the unfaithful wife was much more fun, getting most of the wittier lines. There's also two veteran British music hall stars, Jack Barty, perhaps best remembered, at least by L. and H. fans as Jitters, Mae Busch's mad Butler in OLIVER VIII, here playing a jovial bookie and the legendary Harry Tate, an influence on W.C. Fields, as a comic policeman. It's mildly enjoyable if you're interested in films of this era.

The stars here are greater than the rather pedestrian story about a horse race and betting.

Seems a horse owner (Henry Kendall) has a dandy of an entry for "the big race," but his faithless wife (Enid Stamp-Taylor) blabs about the horse's running trials to her snarky boyfriend (Guy Middleton). What should have been a real dark horse suddenly becomes the favorite, throwing all the bookies into a frenzy because they've taken big bets they'll have to pay off.

Into this mess comes Alastair Pallavant (Claude Hulbert), a famous handicapper. He coerced by a group of bookies into ensuring that the horse, named Take a Chance, is scratched from the race. But he gets involved with a young woman (Binnie Hale) who own a sweepsstake ticket for Take a Chance and has sold a half share in the ticket to make some quick cash.

This all sounds like a screwball comedy, but it plays too slowly and the film never quite builds to the frantic, frenzied ending it needs. Part of the problem is that much of the dialog is undecipherable.

Hulbert and Hale were major stage stars of the era, and each had so-so careers in films in the 1930s and 40s. This film just screams for them to let loose and be funny, but it never quite happens. Co-stars include Gwen Farrar as Emily, Harry Tate as the dumb copper, Jack Barty as the bookie, Knyaston Reeves as Blinkers, and Terry-Thomas as an extra at the race track.

I'm always at a disadvantage when watching films like this – not that the film itself is creaky with age but I don't enjoy either horseracing or gambling which are its main subjects. This is stretched out into a rather laboured farce but I made the best of it and maybe even laughed half a dozen times at it.

Henry Kendall plays the owner of a race horse guaranteed to win the big race, various farcical individuals keep getting in the way to either make him scratch the horse from the race or to ensure its victory for their disparate financial reasons. Included was his wife Enid Stamp-Taylor intent on running away with ever-dashing Guy Middleton who was intent on running away with the future race winnings, ever-dependable Claude Hulbert as a silly ass private eye for the Turf checking on them who managed to get involved with a lady garage hand Binnie Hale, whilst wearing her trousers for most of the film. The only one who appeared to have no skeleton in his closet was the trainer young Kynaston Reeves. Ever-puzzled Percy Walsh leads a gang of rather ineffectual toughs in their expensive attempts to fix the race through wavering reed Hulbert. Quirky Music Hall star Harry Tate played a quirky police sergeant. That was an uncredited Terry-Thomas standing behind the slightly older Middleton at the racetrack – I bet the two of them got on well! There's some good exchanges between Stamp-Taylor and Kendall eg "Are you accusing me of running around with men?" - "It isn't the running around what matters it's what happens when she stops". Some nice location shots too.

If you know you don't like pre-WW2 British quota-quickie comedies and then watch this you'll probably find you've completely wasted your time and effort. But as you might gather I quite liked it, to me it's a nice and familiar cast of old friends dealing with a tortuous but occasionally humorous plot. If I watch it again I may understand it all better but I wouldn't bet on it. It doesn't deserve to be totally forgotten and an "Ealing Rarity" so you might want to take a chance on it.

Like one of the other reviewers I don't like horse racing and I don't like horse racing films.However I do like British films of the thirties so I have had to endure quite a few.I do rather like Claude Hulbert,much better than brother Jack.However the plot is silly and almost devoid of humour.I laughed no more than a couple of times.For me the high spot had to be a brief cameo by music hall star Harry Tate twirling his mustache as a policeman.This was not a film by Ealing films but at Ealing studios.At about this time they also made the horse racing comedy,Come On George.This probably kept a few people amused on the bottom half of a double bill.

Henry Kendall likes the timing at practice, so he enters his horse, Take A Chance for the Gold Cup. Wife Enid Stamp-Taylor has a snit, walks out for an afternoon, and informs her lover that the horse will win. This causes the odds to drop from 50 to one down to the single digits. The bookmakers go crazy as they fail to lay off their bets. Finally, they turn to handicapper (an author of a "tout-sheet" con) Claude Hulbert to try to get the horse scratched. There also follows a bunch of complications as Kendall gets wind that the information is loose and considers scratching the horse on his own.

It's a well-performed if not particularly excellent farce, with Binnie Hale and Jack Barty getting involved in the shenanigans, leading to the inevitable race and the question about whether the horse will win. In America, the screwball comedies of the period confused money and class. Perhaps this attitude of the British film makers is more realistic, but realism doesn't go far in making an amusing farce.

Perhaps I have seen too many comedies and dramas about horse racing for this to have much of an impact. For me, the humor comes from watching the men in their Bond Street clothing and the ladies in their furs, moving in posh settings, and utterly obsessed about the money. Only Kendall seems to have much interest in horse racing as a sport. Perhaps that take is peculiar to me; I have little interest in the question of whether one horse is faster than another at a particular moment.