My Learned Friend

Fresh out of prison, a little man named Grimshaw threatens to take lethal revenge with six little drama killings. He warns two lawyers they're on his list and starts with Riddler-type clues so they can fathom his progress. The lawyers go on a frantic race against time yo try and foil Grimshaw. Their chase includes going through a fight in a criminal's den and making an impromptu guest appearance in a pantomime show. But artful Grimshaw looks to have the beating of them every time. This has to be one of my favorite comedy thrillers and probably my favorite Will Hay movie. Mervyn Johns is in a gleeful devilish mood as Grimshaw. Will Hay directed this in company with Basil Dearden but sadly this was Hay's last contribution to cinema. I've never seen Claude Hulbert so funny. He lets his hair down hilariously dancing the jitterbug.

This was Will Hay's last film and showed a change of direction in that it was a venture into black comedy. Claude Hulbert makes an excellent comic foil and Mervyn Johns is also suitably sinister as a serial murderer. There is a venture into Harold Lloyd territory with Hay and Hulbert clinging to the clock face of Big Ben. Watch out for Ernest Thesiger in a bit part.

This is an excellent film in so many ways. I would argue Hay's best film, although it does not have the warmth of the earlier films, which are so much more "cosey". In fact this is quite dark and disturbing, perhaps too much so for some viewers. There are so many gems here, especially Hay's opening verbal sparring with the cynical, weary, seen it all, magistrate: Hay: "Well at least I leave this court without a stain on my character!". Magistrate: "Your Mummy and Daddy in heaven will be the best judge of that!" Comparable scenes ensue in the Coroner's Court, when Hay is astonished to hear an Old Bailey Judge described by a witness (so he mistakenly thinks) as one of the lads of the village. Safety Wilson and his den are marvellous, as is Hulbert throughout. Mervyn Johns is completely unhinged as Grimshaw and the scenes in the lunatic asylum are bizarre and disturbing. This is Hay comedy at its blackest and arguably most effective.

Age alone works against this now obscure British comedy, which (for good reasons) was never shown in the United States until the mid-1980s. It isn't difficult see why not: wartime American audiences in the 1940s might have considered themselves too sophisticated for such brisk but old-fashioned English humor (and besides, it had no relevance to the war effort). Will Hay, a popular comedian in his homeland, plays a rather dubious lawyer who finds his name at the tail end of a cheerfully psychotic ex-con's vengeance list, leading him into a roundabout chase as he tries to pursue his own would-be murderer. Historian William K. Everson described the film as a noir-comedy (he introduced the film at the screening I attended, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley back in 1986), but the quick pace and non-stop vaudeville chatter are more reminiscent of classic pre-war screwball comedy.

My Learned Friend was Will Hay's last great film, imho only surpassed by Oh Mr Porter from 6 years before. As a guide over the years I've seen this one about 9 times and the latter probably over 20 times by now. For a British film made in the War (even though it points out at the beginning it's set Pre-War) there's not a single reference to Hitler & Co. or current politics - most refreshing! That's not to denigrate or lessen the importance of the war against terror, just I'm glad for once it didn't raise a propaganda head in an ordinary comedy.

Mervyn Johns is out to do in all those people who put him behind bars previously by murdering them one by one. Hay is included as he botched up Johns' defence, and eventually Claude Hulbert too by being Hay's cohort in helping try track him down. The gags and set-piece routines flow thick and fast in only 70 minutes and not a second is wasted - even the final moments leave you in suspense..! My favourite bits are in Safety Wilson's dive, much is made of Hulbert's oddness in such an odd place.

Hay's comic timing was impeccable as usual, while Hulbert shone in his finest silly ass performance - what a memorable team they made! Although if Hay had been well enough to continue his film career I wonder if he would have jettisoned Hulbert the same as he did with Marriott and Moffat? The film is a wonder to behold, and an endless wonder to me why it's nearly always ignored.