Windbag the Sailor

Of all the 1930s English comedies, Will Hay's films are the ones which appeal most in a modern audience. Silly, gentle, nostalgic and always uplifting. Although most of his films are virtually identical, this is one of the best.

This was made immediately after WHERE THERE'S A WILL with the same team but with one notable addition: Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt as Harbottle and Albert who would repeat their roles in Hay's next five pictures. These three are simply magical together.

Although his gentle humour; laughing at loveable incompetence is akin to that of Laurel and Hardy, I find the mood of Hay's films, that sense of teetering close to the close to the cliff edge between blissful ignorance and anarchy closer to that of early Marx Brothers. Maybe it's also because they inevitably have a Margaret Dumont equivalent, a wealthy trusting and naïve patron who can see only the good in Will Hay/Groucho - in this picture, like the previous ones that's Norma Varden who looks and acts suitably matronly despite only being 36! A film like this ostensibly looks childish but what it's doing is appealing to our base emotions and there's nothing wrong with that - after all, you couldn't call SPONGEBOB sophisticated but it's still funny.

It takes real genius (Hay was famously quite the intellectual) to make something which appears so childish so engaging to grown-ups.

I've only seen this a handful of times in the last few decades, I don't know why it's warranted such indifference by the TV film buyers because it's fairly good but maybe with a slightly dodgy soundtrack. Although Will Hay appeared with Moore Marriott 7 times and Graham Moffatt 8, this was their first film of 6 as the seedy, incompetent, crafty trio of lovable rogues. In other words pre-Oh! Mr. Porter and cast and crew were obviously busy establishing the plot and humour that served them well in the years ahead.

Charlatan ship's captain and sidekicks are taken on by ship's owner (and sidekick) for their own nefarious purposes, eventually realised where else but in the South Seas. Almost the entire cast reassembled to create Oh! Mr. Porter 2 years later, by then the script was much tighter than this. The ship is not the only thing here to have a few leaks! Favourite bits: Hay bragging of his derring-do at Valpariso; The global positioning calculations; Sharing the biscuits on the raft; The Box That Talked.

All in all well worth watching (at budget price!) for those of us who like this sort of thing.

A retired barge captain entertains customers in a pub with tall tales of days at sea. He gets caught out when he is tricked into captaining an unseaworthy ship which is to be scuttled for insurance money.

Mildly amusing film with Will Hay as the ship captain aided by Moore Marriott and Graham Moffat as stowaways. These three would go on to to make other, better, films together. Some racial stereotypes and language are now outdated.

Captain Ben Cutlet likes to spin yarns about all of his {fake}seafaring adventures, one day his false past comes to bite him as he is bluffed into captaining the Rob Roy at sea, the Rob Roy being barely sea worthy and doomed to be wrecked by a crafty shipping agent.

Windbag The Sailor is probably most notable for being the first teaming of Will Hay with Moore Marriott & Graham Moffatt, a trio that would go on to make classic British comedies Oh Mr Porter! and Ask A Policeman. Here its evident that they are finding their way as regards what best works for them as a team, but a few mistimings here and there are easily forgiven once the hapless Cutlet {Hay} finds himself at sea completely incapable of captaining the ever thuggish looking crewe. The usual madcap sequences from our bumbling trio dot themselves throughout the film, and there is no lack of oral gags as well, my favourite being one involving Hay explaining to a desert island native the power of the box {a radio acting as a god}.

Hay has done better and worse movies than this, but Windbag The Sailor just about holds its head above water {pun intended} because of the always lovable trio at its core, watchable fluff it be.

6/10

Will Hay appears, not as a schoolmaster this time, but as an incompetent sea captain. However his character is, as usual, one of seedy incompetence, with few redeeming features,for whom one nevertheless roots, with touches of W.C. Fields (not that I am accusing Hay of plagiarism.) The plot, however, has touches of Buster Keaton's "The Navigator." Marriot and Moffat, in their first film with Hay, provide excellent comic support. By no means Hay's best film but well worth watching.