Back-Room Boy

I probably say each Askey comedy is the "best one so far" so if I said it now it wouldn't carry any weight.

But it is.

It's the teaming of him and Googie Withers that does it, and it's interesting to see her both very young and very dark. I know she was a natural brunette in any case but I've gotten so used to seeing her as a blonde in her late 30's roles!

Askey was the guy who does the pips in the hour so that everyone can set their watches. Although this job doesn't bode too well with his girlfriend (Joyce Howard) so he makes a mockery of it one night and somehow gets a new job - relegated to watching over a lighthouse on a deserted island where apparently some evil mermaid haunts. He's glad to be there if only to be away from women at last but this changes when Googie's boat is torpeedoed and she's stranded there with him, and then about seven more of her girlfriends make it to land after her. The movie takes a decidedly more mysterious turn when they all start disappearing without a trace.

I'd give this one a 10 and put it up with other great laughs such as "The Ghost Train", "Charley's Big-Hearted Aunt" and "Bees In Paradise".

Arthur Askey plays Arthur Pilbeam, who after recently being jilted by his fiancé swears off women and seeks employment away from them. He lands a post at a remote lighthouse on one of the Scotish Isles, here he thinks he's finally cracked it and can enjoy solitude whilst providing the meteorological bulletins. However, his peace is soon shattered when young Jane walks into his life, she stowed-away on his boat for she's searching for her uncle on a neighbouring island. Then Bobbie shows up after her boat was torpedoed, then another boat load of survivors, predominantly women, arrive. Arthur is beside himself, but worse is to come for all of a sudden they all start to disappear one by one. Could this be another Mary Celeste? Only in lighthouse form?

Produced out of Gainsborough Pictures, this Askey vehicle is directed by Herbert Mason and co-written by Marriott Edgar, Val Guest & J.O.C. Orton. Starring alongside Askey are Googie Withers, Moore Marriott, Graham Moffatt and Vera Francis. Very much along the lines of another Guest/Edgar scripted piece, the classic Oh Mr Porter! this fun and breezy picture sees Askey restrained and the film be all the better for it. In truth it takes its time to get going, practically 40 minutes pass by before the additional characters start being introduced. Which means we are at the mercy of Askey and the delightful Vera Francis for much of the movie. But it works.

Francis isn't an annoying child star, she has nice delivery and her role is so well scripted it keeps the film breezy. Her natural like presence appears to have a good effect on Askey, who is more relaxed and thus the comedy is more humanistic and real. Enter the support players, who somewhat understandably given the plot, aren't given much to do. Which is a shame because more of Withers, Marriott & Moffatt would obviously have been a bonus. But it is what it is and as the mystery element kicks in, and some sinister undertones sidle up next to the comedy, the lack of meat for the support characters' bones is easily forgiven. There's no real surprises come the finale, but one thinks nobody would be expecting that given the time of the film's release. So sit back and enjoy this fun mystery for it's one of the better Askey pictures. 7/10

This is quite a fun outing for Arthur Askey. He is transferred from the BBC in London to a lonely lighthouse to set up a weather station. Needless to say, it's wet, windy and downright dreich in his new home. Then in the best traditions of "Whisky Galore" there is shipwreck. This time, though, it's not booze - but buxom beauties that find themselves stranded and he finds himself completely bamboozled. He is soon awakened from his delirium of delight though, when the girls start to disappear. What could be happening to them? He starts to investigate and soon finds himself embroiled in a devious Nazi plot that could alter the course of the whole war. It's maybe a bit too long - it certainly takes a while to get going, but once it's up and running it shows off the comic skills and timing of this consummate professional as he owns the screen with his smile and his antics. The story is a gentle reminder of what made us laugh at the height of the war and though entirely predictable is still quite a watchable effort with a couple of nice contributions from Googie Withers and Moore Marriott too.

One of Arthur Askey's better moments, in a Ghost Train/Oh Mr Porter-style comedy-thriller featuring a haunted lighthouse and a boatload of disappearing girls. Plenty to savour. In particular, Askey's performance, stripped of the charmless mugging to which he was regrettably prone, is very enjoyable, and unusually for him bears a passing resemblance to a member of the human race. Disappointed in love, he turns all misogynistic, tries to run away from women, and of course ends up surrounded by them; he is greatly supported by a dry, even sardonic script.

Other pluses include Moore Marriott on good form as Jerry, and a splendid debut by Vera Frances, surely one of the top child stars of the UK cinema. A real shame she didn't make more films. She delivers several marvellous lines, pearls of wisdom indeed, in a convincing cockney accent, although perhaps flawed by her imperfect diction; a very nice dry run for her finest moment with Tommy Handley in It's That Man Again. The opening sequence, where Askey is the man charged with doing the pips for the BBC, is splendid - as another commentator has already said, one wonders how many of the audience actually believed that they were produced by hand. The BBC has always inspired a vein of mildly surrealistic comedy, and Askey was one of its best exponents. And the scene where Askey first sees Googie Withers is genuinely scary.

There are minuses. After the BBC sequence, the plot takes an age to get going, and the scares of the middle third of the picture aren't connected strongly enough with those of the final third. The actual plot feels a bit bolted onto the rest of the picture. And although, in this genre, it is essential that the lead character is a cowardly incompetent who undoes the villains, here Askey is too cowardly, and does too little to thwart the sinister plot. Finally, Graham Moffatt has a couple of decent lines, but basically there is not enough for him to do, and sadly he is by now much too old to play the Albert character.

But all in all, a nice film, a cosy hour and a quarter, several good jokes, and certified safe even for committed Askeyphobes.

An interesting curiosity, this. Originally written for Will Hay, Arthur Askey was substituted when Hay switched studios. The result is a gentle comedy that conforms to the Will Hay template, complete with support from Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt, of a self-important incompetent put in charge of a remote outpost - in this case a WW2 meteorological station in an abandoned lighthouse off the coast of Scotland.

At first you wonder how it's going to work with Askey all alone and talking to himself for a whole film (although this is actually managed very well), but of course he's soon joined on his desolate rock by stowaways, shipwrecked mariners, Nazi fifth-columnists, and, most improbably but entertainingly, a boatload of glamorous women on their way to a fashion show.

Arthur Askey is surprisingly good in this, presumably because the script forces him to abandon his usual mugging to the audience and instead gives him an actual character, albeit one of Will Hay's. There's excellent support from Googie Withers and child star Vera Frances, who very nearly steals the film. And while there are plenty of gags, as you'd expect, the adventure aspect also works well, with the rag-tag group of plucky British misfits taking on the might of the German navy. You can see how this would have hit the spot in 1942.