Ask a Policeman

Because "Oh Mr Porter" was filmed two years earlier, it gets more favour from the critics, but although this film was a reworking of that plot, it stands up equally, if not better. -

There are so many great scenes. My favourite being when Harbottle (Marriott already playing a much older man) takes them to see his father, played by himself. Just shows what a superb actor he was. - The print quality seems a little worse for wear in places. Probably due to over use!

Will Hay was never better than when he was working with Graham Moffatt and Moore Marriot, both of whom had such a rapport with him (or his character) that it really is hard not to be charmed by the trio.

It's a familiar and obvious plot that Hay used to it's best - incompetent authoritative figure gets in a mess with the help of his two stooges, falls out with the boss (Chief Constable), is taken advantage of by the locals (smugglers) but eventually wins the day.

This is a joy from start to finish and very, very nearly matches Oh Mr Porter. There's gags from the very start to the very end.

A piece of classic entertainment with the virtue of being free from sex, violence and swearing. They don't make like this anymore I'm sorry to say.

The small English village of Turnbottom Round prides itself on being the safest place in the United Kingdom. All due to the crack law enforcement team of Will Hay and his two second bananas Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. In fact they're so good they haven't made any arrests in ten years, didn't even pick up a drunk for a night to sleep it off. They even have a BBC broadcast to celebrate this town and its peaceful nature and peaceful cops.

But someone decides this little sinecure has gone on long enough. What to do, but create some crime. But these three muck up traffic arrests.

Their salvation of sorts might be a suspected smuggling ring which has taken advantage of the lax police work and operates with impunity. Not that Turnbottom Round PD does anything really but the bad guys are rounded up in spite of Hay and his staff.

Some really funny sequences including the BBC broadcast where no one can quite get the use of the microphone right, the search for the smugglers, the attempts at enforcing traffic laws and how that works out and the final chase scene where Turnbottom Round's finest commandeer a bus for their pursuit.

This nicely done Will Hay comedy could have been a model for Police Academy movies.

Turnbotham Round has no crime, something that becomes common knowledge after a radio programme is broadcast from the village. Upon hearing this broadcast, the top brass at Scotland Yard send word that if there is no crime there, then why employ policemen to police the village? Realising that their good lives are about to come to an end, inept coppers Dudfoot (Will Hay), Brown (Graham Moffatt) and Harbottle (Moore Marriott) set about making some arrests. What they hadn't bargained for was the uncovering of a smuggling ring and the unleashing of the phantom headless horseman.

Much like Will Hay's Good Morning, Boys (1937) followed a similar formula to that of one of his earlier pictures, Boys Will Be Boys (1935), so it be with Ask A Policeman in that it has close links with critics fave, Oh Mr. Porter! (1937). However, that in no way is a bad thing because Ask A Policeman is utter joy from start to finish. In fact I would go so far as to say that the writing is actually better here. With a writing team consisting of Marriott Edgar, Sidney Gilliat, Val Guest and J.O.C. Orton, it's no wonder that the gags come thick and fast and still hold up over 80 years later.

Marcel Varnel once again directs Hay and his blunderingly magnificent sidekicks, Marriott and Moffatt, and each of them are on terrific form as they within a heartbeat lurch from incredulity to stupidity. They are helped by the story and its delightful supernatural set ups. These coppers have been having it easy for so long they have forgotten just what it takes to be a copper. More content with bending the rules for an easy life (note some nice satire in the writing), these guys are suddenly faced with the supernatural and actual real crime. Something they are delightfully unable to properly cope with. From trying to set up a roadside speeding arrest to an attempt at solving an ancient smugglers rhyme, Ask A Policeman, courtesy of an across the board team on fire, is to my mind one of the greatest British films of all time. So pay attention to the jokes and admire the visual comedy that goes with them, and then hopefully you too will appreciate just what genius Hay and his cohorts brought to British comedy between 1936 to 1940. 10/10

Will Hay's best-known film is the classic "Oh, Mr Porter" but this one isn't far behind. Hay is cast in his favourite role ; a seedily incompetent authority figure who conceals his uncertainty behind bluster and bombast.

This is one of those rare films where the plot is almost an intrusion ; who cares about a smuggling ring in rural England, when we can instead enjoy the antics of Hay and his cohorts, playing possibly the most inept police team in the history of law enforcement. Their attempts to set a speed trap, and then to justify their results to an irate motorist, may be the high spot of the film.