Warn That Man

This is a poorly made and rather feeble wartime film about a plot by the Nazis to kidnap Churchill and spirit him off to Germany. The name Churchill and the title Prime Minister are never mentioned in the film, and Churchill is referred to only as 'that man', which comes across as ludicrously coy. From the very beginning, when a silly voice-over says three times before the credits: 'Warn that man! Warn that man! Warn that man!', I knew I was in for a grim viewing of a very inferior film. I am a great admirer of Gordon Harker, and here he has a leading role, but the part offers him little opportunity to show off his genuine talents, and the direction is so bad that all he is asked to do is mug some faces, lark about, and make some limp Cockney jokes. The film creaks like an old door hinge. I cannot understand why anyone bothered to put it on Blu-Ray, as if it were a classic. The only kind of classic it is, one might say, is a classic flop.

Warn That Man is a stage play that was turned into a wartime propaganda B movie.

Winston Churchill will be having a break at Buckley Hall as a special guest of Lord Buckley (Raymond Lovell.)

The Nazis has ordered a German actor called Hausemann (Raymond Lovell) to masquerade as Lord Buckley as they look similar.

The Germans invade the country house, abduct Lord Buckley and kill some of his servants. The Nazis replace them with their own people.

The plan goes awry as they fail to notice Lord Buckley's niece had arrived and was upstairs hiding. Later in comes her boyfriend who is a pilot with two other people who rescued him when he was shot down.

The three of them immediately smell a rat as Lord Buckley does not seem to know the boyfriend or that his niece was due to visit.

A hybrid comedy thriller. It is a strange concoction. The comedy seems laboured at times and stunts the thrills.

This has the same basic storyline as "The Eagle Has Landed" only in this instance on a rather smaller budget and made at a rather small studio at Welwyn.However in this case the story is set in a country house and there is little action outside probably a combination of wartime and budgetary considerations.The storyline is quite predictable and there are few surprises. The main character is played by that reliable character actor Gordon Harker who combines his usual roles of detective and Cockney tearaway and imbuing it all with his traditional humour. Quite an entertaining film which i kept from its last airing on Channel 4 about 20 years ago.I am afraid that there is little chance of it turning up again on TV in the near future.

I can't agree with the previous comments, It's a light hearted attempt to boost moral,take it for what it is,an 80 year old film (B feature) yes corny but great fun.

German agent Raymond Lovell is called upon to impersonate Lord Buckley, who fortuitously speaks with exactly the same fruity lisp; but being German (along with the German national anthem constantly on the soundtrack every time he does something) gives himself away by not knowing the correct direction to pass the port. His Prussian handler played by Carl Jaffe seems initially to have been meant to be Goebbels himself until he himself turns up at Buckley Hall (presumably by parachute).

Based on a 1941 West End hit by Vernon Sylvaine. Although sharing the same basic premise with 'The Eagle Has Landed', Ealing's 'Went the Day Well?' is actually far more like the later film; and neither of them had Gordon Harker barge in halfway through. Quite a few people die violently, but this is all treated as inconsequentially as in one of those garrulous pre-war murder mysteries set in enormous houses with sweeping if wobbly staircases in which log fires and lights blaze seemingly untended all night (despite the reference to wartime shortages shoehorned into the script...).