Black Sheep of Whitehall

Will Hay was never as funny again after leaving Gainsborough for Ealing, and with it Graham Moffat & Moore Marriott. This one is a particularly dispiriting affair, with few of a good cast at their best - and it doesn't even have Claude Hulbert! Hay laboriously impersonates six different characters without any attempt to change his voice or body language; while the concluding motor cycle chase set against an attractive rural backdrop initially promises to liven things up, but proves far too confusing and goes on far too long.

There are odd moments such as the radio interview with Leslie Mitchell that reduces Mitchell to a perspiring wreck, and John Mills has a couple of funny scenes impersonating an amnesiac in the Psychopathic Ward; but it took until Hay's next (and final) two films to return to something like his old form.

This World War Two comedy starred popular comedian Will Hay, pitting himself with top straight actors like John Mills and Felix Aylmer.

When he is forced to vacate the office of his debt-ridden correspondence "college", "Professor" Will Davis goes to the Ministry of International Commerce at Whitehall, London, in order to confront his one-and-only student, PR man Bobby Jessop. To get Davis off his back, Jessop proposes to get him a job at Whitehall.

Jessop then leaves in order to fetch another Professor Davys at the train station. This Professor Davys is a leading economist who has returned from a long stay in South America in order to advise the government on a trade treaty with the South American nations, which could be crucial to Britain's war effort.

Will Davis is mistaken for the expert and gets involved in a series of interviews, giving answers based on gambling, con jobs, double entendres or just plain ignorance! Jessop later returns with "Professor Davys" and the confusion is sorted out, though it has left the BBC interviewers in a state of mental collapse! Jessop then discovers that the man he brought with him is in fact Crabtree, a member of a group of Fifth Columnists working for Nazi Germany.

Jessop promises Will Davis a job if he helps him track down the real Professor Davys, who is being held in a safe house by Crabtree's associates. Assuming a number of disguises, Will Davis and Jessop set off to foil the plot before the treaty is compromised! Full of puns, pursuits, running around and double-entendres, this is a wonderful comedy which pokes fun at espionage, the medical and transport services and bureaucratic red tape.

Hay and Mills had worked before, most notably on "Those Were the Days" (1933). They make a great pairing, with Mills being allowed to display his fair share of comedy ability, matching Hay with witty put-down talk.

Thora Hird features at the beginning as Will Davis' secretary, who is owed, rather than paid, to deal with the equally unpaid bills! And we get plenty from Shakespearean actor Felix Aylmer.

Wartime audiences must have enjoyed seeing broadcaster Leslie Mitchell driven to a nervous breakdown while interviewing Hay! Mitchell was the first commentator for the new BBC Television Service when it began transmissions on 2 November 1936. He also provided the commentary for the Movietone News shown at the cinemas.

Will Hay was approaching the end of his screen career by 1942, and the quality of his work had suffered after he decided to dispense with the services of Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. While The Black Sheep of Whitehall has its moments, it never reaches the heights of his earlier work. John Mills provides energetic suppport, but he never seemed comfortable in comic roles, and fails to provide the kind of repartee upon which Hay's brand of humour depended.

Will Hay was one of the most popular British comedians of the 1930's and early 1940's. He usually played a seedy incompetent trying vainly to exert his authority and prove his expertise to a sceptical world.

In this film Hay's character (Professor *Davis*) becomes confused with a truly expert economist (Professor *Davys*). The real professor is kidnapped by spies and Will Hay adopts a series of disguises in his efforts to track down the gang (aided by John Mills).

One of the highlights of the film comes when Hay has to deliver the Professor's talk on economics on BBC radio. His attempt to explain the global economy in terms of nuts from Brazil and port from Portugal ("Brazilians will definitely grow more and more nuts!") has to be heard to be believed and reduces the interviewer (played by BBC newsman Leslie Mitchell) to a nervous collapse. Priceless stuff!

THE BLACK SHEEP OF WHITEHALL was one of the many films starring the now largely forgotten British comedian Will Hays. As usual, he's a shady character who gets dragged into things; this time a Professor Davies - running an mail order qualifications scam - who is confused with a Professor Daveys - a top Latin American economist come to London to arbitrate on a vital trade agreement - after the latter is kidnapped by Nazi agents in the middle of the Second World War. With John Mills' straight man, they rumble the plot and - afraid the police won't believe them - decide to free the right professor by infiltrating the sanitorium where he's being hidden. It's fast-paced, music-hall comedy as the pair bumble from scrape to scrape, with the inevitable transvestism and occasional war jokes. The highlight though is the climactic chase, in which the professor is towed behind a car on a medical tricycle; it is a brilliant piece of visual comedy that makes the entire film worthwhile. An old-fashioned treat.