Back-Room Boy

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.

This was Arthur Askey's fifth film (and sans Stinker), and in my opinion his last really good one - three flag wavers and many nothing's followed. It's also one of my favourite British WW2 comedy efforts, a jolly time-passing Hun-beater.

At the BBC Arthur is responsible for transmitting on the hour every hour The Wireless Pips - wonder how many people believed it - but not surprisingly it wreaks havoc with his social life. Big, now a confirmed misogynist is posted to a lonely Scottish lighthouse where there are no women ... when he arrives. Never mind the photo of the topless woman, there's soon Googie and a gaggle of leggy and laughing lovelies for him to try and ignore too. With a plethora of spooky disappearances he's up against Jerry (and "Quislings") but doesn't know it until near the end - the audience would've guessed from the beginning they'd make a show. A refreshing extra dimension was added with Vera Francis, the "13 year old from Lambeff" - her world-weary and cynical comments still sound fresh and amusing even at this distance. Arthur and Vera made a good team, this one's worth watching just to see them spark.

A pleasant outing for all concerned, sad to think it was all downhill afterwards.

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.

After being jilted by his fiancee, Arthur Pilbeam wants a job where he will encounter no women. He is sent to a lighthouse on a remote Scottish island which is being run as a meteoroligical station where he is supposed to be the only inhabitant. However, Jane, a young girl, has stowed-away on his boat. She is looking for her uncle on the neighbouring island. Then model Bobbie turns up - her boat has been torpedoed. With the arrival of another boatload of survivors, bringing the total occupancy of the island to 13, things are getting a little crowded. That's when they all start to disappear, one by one...

Arthur Askey is at his best in this combination mystery and war propaganda. Arthur plays a weatherman who is sent to a stormy island lighthouse off the coast of Scotland. He is thankful for his solitude and his separation from the world of women. However, he soon finds himself surrounded by a young girl and a bevy of beautiful women. Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt show up on the island as well to help Askey provide the laugh. The guys and the gals are soon matching wits with the Nazis who are bent on setting up a mine field in the North Sea. Arthur Askey is a bit more restrained in this movie compared to other efforts and it works to his advantage.