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.

I have Nail Deans autobiography. He says that he had the utmost difficulty in persuading Florence Desmond to take the female lead because her part consisted mainly of rushing after George carrying a child of three. However she needed the money.

He says that they had to be careful about his musical members because he couldn't read a note of music.

He adds that none of his films did worthwhile business in the West End but elsewhere it was a case of all seats sold most of the time.

His films sold on the strength of his personality. So far as the audience was concerned he was gormless. His best known number was featured in this film.

In this film - as in every Formby film - goofish gormless George always gets the girl. Why?

Cus he's a soft daft lad with a happy ukulele - and he's got all the best tunes.

Admittedly, the daft antics get more farcical - even positively ludicrous - as this film goes along (goat carried onto crowded bus wearing a dog mask being the silliest example)

The scene where a matronly nurse tries to take George's trousers off made my girlfriend laugh her mascara off. "Never touched me!" Not!

I was starting to feel myself "going daft" quite a bit at that too.

If you can't let yourself go daft watching a George Formby film you may as well watch something else.

This is another one of my favourite Formby's, a fast paced comedy drama with a lot of plot to it (based on a Russian play from 1928), a couple of nice songs and a view of a long dead England. It was the 2nd major vehicle for him at ATP after No Limit under the expert guidance of Basil Dean … and Beryl of course!

Eccentric aunt Georgina dies and leaves her gormless nephew George £90,000 in bonds and jewels sewn up in one of a number of chairs already being auctioned. Unfortunately wide eyed manic lawyer Alistair Sim also knows so the chase is on to get to the correct chair before the other does. In this George is aided by Flo Desmond and her little niece Binkie and hindered by smooth talking Gus McNaughton, eventually making front page headlines as a gang of chair-slashers being sought by the police. Nowadays ordinary slashers find they're not being sought by the police. Songs: When I'm Cleaning Windows (in Madame Louise's suddenly dubious apartment, and on the uke that became Lot 443 in the auction of his property after his death in 1961); Tip Of My Toes (by Flo at breakfast in the boarding house); Binkie's Lullaby (in the workman's hut – delightfully ended by Binkie's cute line "Auntie Florrie's asleep, come on, let's play"); and Keep Your Seats Please (first in the pawnshop then on the bus, again playing to Binkie's obvious delight). Favourite bits: the knockabout scenes at Doctor Wilberforce's surgery, with George astounding him by revealing he had twin appendixes; the farcical situations with Enid Stamp-Taylor; Max's ever-increasing percentage take; x-raying the goat. There's the usual great cast that appeared in George's finest films at Ealing when he was Britain's top star – the formula had arrived, was perfect, and was played over and over again.

If you like Formby as I do there's not a dull moment in here, it's wonderful old fashioned entertainment from start to finish, if you don't like Formby here's another chance to work off some cynical bile.

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.