Penny and the Pownall Case

This is a delightful wartime comedy in which a bimbo fashion model outsmarts a gang of Nazi supporters operating in Britain. Fortunately for British morale at the time, Penny spends a great deal of time changing her clothes in front of the camera. The story is really a mere excuse to parade this good looking young woman on screen, but it's done ever so tastefully and with tongue firmly in cheek. Ironically, future sex symbol Diana Dors is cast as a dowdy secretary at this early stage of her career.

Peggy Evans is a model for Christopher Lee; he draws a comic strip for a newspaper which seems to specialize in showing Miss Evans in sunsuits, raising her skirts, and so forth. She a fiend for mysteries, and when Detective Inspector Ralph Michael drops by to ask Lee some questions about a kidnapping that has turned into a murder, she's so fascinated she agrees to go with Lee to sunny Spain for modelling. Soon, however, she finds herself involved with much more dangerous people, smuggling Nazis out of Europe.

The racy comic strip is based on Norman Pett's strip about Jane, a young woman who found herself on the pages of the Mirror in states of undress. Pett's wife was the original model, but she developed an interest in golf and was replaced by Chrystabel Leighton-Porter. Pett gave up the strip in 1948, and it continued for another eleven years.

This is the only directorial effort of Slim Hand. Far less revealing than the comic strip, and utterly conventional, it's a fairly wan second feature at 47 minutes.

The premise for the film is rather cute, a beautiful bimbo getting herself in the center of an international espionage adventure. The movie is quite quick with a surprising amount of sexual innuendo and lingering shots of the striking and well lit Peggy Evans in high fashion and states of undress verging on gratuitous. Evans' acting for such a litterally comic roll is commendable, but cannot be said for the male lead, even his reaction shots are remarkably poor.

An interesting curiousity is that Penny is seen in a bikini with briefs that cover her sacred belly button, however, in the comics drawn for her in the film, she wears a relatively modern bikini (tight fit and cut).

Possibly worth looking at if no other movie is running just to see what a gratuitous film looked like post-war era. Not worth going out of your way to see or even wasting the time to program your VCR.

The Story concerns catching escaped German WWII prisoners in early post war Britain.Christopher Lee plays a General Kressman a Nazi who is posing as an artist who draws a comic strip in the style of the 1940s Daily Mirror "Jane". This requires the services of the statuesque model Penny Justin who for once steals the glamour thunder from the soon to be peroxided Diana Dors.Clues are embedded by Lee into the succeeding comic strips which can then be read by his foreign agents.Penny has ambitions herself to become a detective being a voracious reader of crime novels which have gone to her head.Meanwhile DD is the secretary, Molly James, to Ralph Michael (Inspector Michael Carson) of Scotland Yard.His job is to track down the war criminals and investigate the murder of Detective Henry Pownall.

Part of the investigation means travelling to Spain and here we briefly meet Sam Costa more famous for appearing in the 1940s radio comedy "Much Binding in the Marsh".A rare comic sequence involves a road sign painter who nearly gets run over by the baddies car then the police car and who then gives up painting "Thank You" onto the sign.Lee in his first role on screen has that far away look of a fanatical Nazi in his eyes which sold him as a "baddy" thereafter to future casting directors.

I have never seen Penny Justin in other roles, perhaps she was a real life full time model when not filming.Michael Carson successfully completes his investigation with the not inconsiderable help of Penny while falling for her charms.IMDb.com rated this film 5.8 while my rating was 6.0

The Rank Company of Youth (the Charm School) was not based at the Highbury Studios. It was located in a rather grubby church hall a few hundred yards away. In a 1982 BBC-tv documentary presented by Barry Norman the likes of Diana Dors and Barbara Murray spoke of how unglamorous it was. It was alleged that male and female changing was behind curtains at either end of the hall, and that the toilet facilities were at the Highbury Studios! This first manifestation of the Charm School closed around 1949 when Rank was making economies. The Highbury Studios were closed at that time too.