Lazybones

It's difficult to explain why this is so pleasant to watch. It's well made and well acted enough but the story is hardly gripping. It's a bit like having a nice bowl of chicken soup on a chilly afternoon. One thing it isn't though is a comedy: chicken soup maybe but definitely not Duck Soup.

Since this was done on the cheap - indeed cheapness was essentially the only criterion for this, Michael Powell doesn't have any opportunity to do anything particularly interesting with it, he nevertheless does a competent if rather pedestrian job. His characters do actually seem like real people. OK, they're not especially interesting people but true and believable ones; ones you wouldn't object to spending an hour with.

This overall 'niceness' is helped by having a team of very professional actors who actually give performances better than you'd see in some productions from the big studios with proper budgets. The real star of the show however is lovely Claire Luce who is utterly captivating. Whether you're following the story or not, no red-blooded male will be able to take their eyes off her!

I'm sure that comedian Harry Enfield based his Mr Cholmondley-Warner character on Michael Shepley's stuffy Mr Pope. He's every imperial inch, the epitome of the 1930s English gent. This adds a certain unexpected comedy element to this somewhat prosaic yet charming little film.

This was one of the very last 'quota quickies' Julius Hagen's Twickenham Studios were to make before ambitiously embarking on his quest to make Twickenham a rival to Gaumont-British and the big Hollywood outfits. No longer would he be simply making the cheapest possible product which the likes of RKO and Universal were obliged to purchase. Sadly for him, the economic conditions of the time couldn't be more wrong resulting in his grand plans going down in flames - quite literally since his studio shortly burned down.

To fend off American Film Studio competition and influence British parliament passed a film act requiring a minimum fraction of films exhibited in Britain to be produced in Britain. To comply with the law, American studios made very cheap films in Britain to show at off hours in order to have the legal right to exhibit the profitable American "A" pictures. Lazybones in an example of this type of film dubbed a QUOTA QUICKIE.

I learned of this film from an episode of a British TV series (listed below) which excerpted this film to illustrate the regulation scheme that sustained the production of these Quota Quickies by British producers for American studios.

Calling these "B" movies is really missing the point. B movies were made to fill out a program at studio discretion. Quota Quickies were made and shown ONLY to satisfy British regulations and were never intended to show outside Britain. Often these QQs played while the lights were up and the cleaning staff was doing the overnight cleaning.

I learned about this practice from a British program on YouTube called, An Ocean Apart Episode #2 (Home in Pasadena).

Quota Quickies air from 32:45 to 36:30.

Lazybones is shown at 34:20.

There's a thematic throughline developing through Powell's quote quickies of shiftless men gaining purpose through a woman and becoming valuable members of society through the strength of their ideas. Here, it's really truncated, though. The 60-minute runtime doesn't allow for a lot of room in the storytelling, and Powell dedicates too much time to a supporting cast that don't do much more than take up room. They'd be fine window-dressing, perhaps one could call it world-building, in a 90 minute film with more time to breathe, but the 60-minute runtime requires a more ruthlessly efficient and single-minded approach to the storytelling.

The titular lazybones is Sir Reginald Ford (Ian Hunter), a lay-about lord, leader of the family made up of his siblings, with no ambitions, an inability to get out of bed in the morning due to ennui, and the potential to ask the young American Kitty (Claire Luce) to marry him. It's the seemingly common story of a nearly bankrupt older name and the newer money coming together for, potentially, a marriage of convenience and trade (the title for the cash). Kitty has a former beau from America, Mike (Bernard Nedell), who has come to England on the business of corporate espionage, set to steal government documents from Hildebrand (Michael Shepley), Reginald's brother-in-law. He uses it as an opportunity to try and repair the break with Kitty, and we have our love-triangle.

The problem is all the time spent on the family, including Reginald's two other siblings, Hugh (Denys Blakelock) and Marjory (Mary Gaskell), and a few policemen looking for Mike. They're a source of comic business, which entertains for sure, but it sacrifices our ability to understand that there's actually a possibility that Kitty might go back to Mike. It's either a lack of time to develop things or that she's never going to go to him anyway which undermines the whole effort at dramatic stakes in the film.

The other side of things that never quite feels as robust as it needs to be is the subplot about Kitty's money. She's apparently lost it all (though we never get a reason, just a line about bad investments which is good enough), leaving her with only the pub she bought near the Ford house as her only possession. She tells Reginald about it directly. He believes her. His siblings tell him that it's only a ruse to test his loyalty to her. They get married. She finds out that his family told him it was a ruse, and she instantly tries to break it off with him because he stammers a bit. It's sitcom-level writing that doesn't make the most sense. Perhaps if Powell had sold the idea that he really did believe that it was a ruse, but there's no time for that when light comic business with side characters is necessary.

The actual plot of the film that dominates the final half is the stealing of the government documents by Mike, his hiding it with Kitty, and then Kitty disappearing because she's mad at Reginald. This coincides with Reginald's self-actualization and need for work, so he makes the house a cash cow in an interesting and fun little way.

And that's kind of the thrust of the film: a plot that never really connects with characters that never quite gel, but there are amusing comic bits throughout. There's a tug of war between Mike and the chief inspector on his tail, Kemp (Bobbie Comber), including the dropping of flower vases near the policeman. Even Kitty's nanny/friend, Bridget (Sara Allgood) gets a few moments along those lines. There's the pair of drinkers who show up to the pub right at opening time to down a pair of beer and leave. There's the whole ending where Reginald puts a twist on the whole working and class thing that's honestly quite fun.

It's just that little actually connects narratively. It's obvious that Powell was working very quickly, but this script by Gerard Fairlie based on a play by Ernest Denny needed more of what it already had to bridge the narrative points more effectively. The story is lacking, but the moments are nice.

I did never see anything by Powell (nor by longtime collaborator Emeric Pressburger) but I figure I couldn't have a worse start than this one. Technically interesting, but the acting is unbelievably terrible and the supposed jokes diffuse and float away before they have the chance to reach your speakers :-( and that's not due to the lack of music (apart from the begintitles and the endscene). Let's just say Powell needed MORE than 5 years to learn how to handle actors AND sound. Probably interesting for Powell-completists and/or if you can be satisfied with nice cinematography (by Arthur Crabtree) alone. If you want the tape (VHS-PAL) I'll send it over gladly ;-)

An example of a "Quota Quickie" - one of the hundreds of low-budget B movies that British studios churned out to receive government funding between 1927-1937.

Making allowances for the financial and time constraints this film was clearly made under (many of the "Quota Quickie" films were shot around the working schedules of actors who were simultaneously engaged in theatrical work), the film still falls a bit short due to a weak script and (unsurprisingly) rather stagy performances by the cast. On the plus side, the film does have quite an engaging plot and rattles along at a cheery pace.

In conclusion, Lazybones is worth viewing for 3 reasons: 1) a fantastic little cameo appearance by the wonderful British character actor Miles Malleson 2) for Michael Powell fans to catch his early directorial work 3) for Alfred Hitchcock fans to realise just how far ahead of the game he was! (The 39 Steps was released in the same year)