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!

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.

Ask a policeman, to my mind, is one of the greatest comedies ever made!!! Sure you might not see it on everybody's top 10 comedy lists but that's probably because they have never heard, nor seen the film before!!! Every second has a comic gem, not one minute goes by without an erruption of laughter from it's audience. It truly is one of the most underrated comedies ever made. I suggest you all go seek it out and find this out for yourselves!!!

This is another excellent little film from the great Will Hay, the English comic genius that no-one today has ever heard of!

I only saw this because HMV record shop (in the UK) were selling off tons of Will Hay DVDs at £6.99 each - what better chance than to discover anew the great Will Hay. I didn't even think that Will Hay would be available on DVD, yet there are many.

The three-man team of Hay, Marriott, and Moffatt are brilliant as usual, just a bunch of bumbling clowns pretending to themselves that they know what they're doing. Of course, by pure luck, they manage to catch the villains and do themselves credit.

Interesting shots of Brooklands racing circuit in the pre-War years (this circuit remains but has been chopped up in parts).

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.