Don't Take It to Heart!

Peter Hayward (Richard Greene) leads the villagers in the town of Chaunduyt (pronounced "Condwit") against a landowner, Mr Pike (Alfred Drayton), who refuses to allow animals onto his land and wants to plough up the cricket pitch. Peter is helped by a ghost (Richard Bird) who has been released from the walls of a stately home after it has been hit by a German bomb. Hey, it might be a British bomb, after all, we now know that in every war it seems traditional to kill your own troops in some way. The film climaxes with a court scene and a surprise revelation.

I was hoping for a good ghost story but it is far from that. Unfortunately, this is another example of British silliness. The ghost as played by Richard Bird is hardly in the film and when he does appear, he is portrayed as a friendly buffoon. Another buffoon who I suspect was meant to court sympathy was the "Butler" as portrayed by Edward Rigby. We have tedious sections at the beginning of the film where every time he moves around the stately home, he is accompanied by comedy music. I found him irritating. There are some funny touches, eg, the fact that everyone in the village has the same name due to inbreeding throughout the years (a hot topic especially with the royal family) and this film gives us the original dilemma over the pronunciation of the surname "Bucket"...... or is that "Bouquet"?

If you like silly British nonsense, then you will enjoy this film. It's not a catastrophe but it is a disappointment.

For someone who knows so little about British films, I was delighted to learn more by watching it in the only place one might find it these days: You Tube. It's British humour and therefore one has to be awake to get the full benefit. The British routinely poke fun at themselves, especially their Xenophobia. When a passenger on a bus learns that the driver who drove so badly was a 'foreginer' and 'French' to boot, she simply replied "so there you are". I found the whole thing a delicious and at times an hysterically funny film. Add to that the inimitable British skill at character depiction and a cast of terrific actors to act them out and the result is quite impressive. It's also interesting to note the date of production (1944), Like the Americans, the Brits didn't make film about the War during it; they both preferred to laugh their way to Victory as much as possible. These great film greatly helped relieve the enormous personal stress of those enduring that horror. As Eleanor Roosevelt (if I remember correctly the author) said about the war on the home front: "keep 'em laffing "

When a German bomb lands on a crypt, the explosion lets out the ghost of a bad old earl, and lets loose a roundabout plot involving a decayed aristocrat, his tenant, who wishes to enclose a cricket pitch annoying the local villagers, Richard Greene, who has shown up to look at some recently revealed old manuscripts and his real life wife, Patricia Medina, as the earl's daughter.

There's a fair amount of well-constructed social satire in this production, as well as some good jokes, and the amount of silliness increases at a steady pace throughout, as the ghost becomes more and more active in setting things right. A goodly number of screen comics get a chance to amuse the audience, particularly Edward Rigby as the butler, Moore Marriott as the inevitable ciderhouse layabout and Joan Hickson, when she was merely middle-aged -- doubtless, if she ever appeared in any movies when she was young, they were produced by Robert W. Paul.

Although the movie becomes a bit too cartoonish for my taste at the three-quarters mark, it recovers itself nicely at the end and makes its points, humorous, dramatic and serious, nicely by the end.

Just watching this old film on the Talking Pictures TV Channel, I have never heard of it and was in two minds about bothering.

But I am glad that I did as its full of whimsy, and old film and TV personalities.

1944 was the year my Brother Murray was born, and I generally like to see films and locations before I was born.

One of the pleasures of these old flicks is spotting the actors, and remembering what they were in.

The absolute youngest of them here is a real toddler Harry Fowler, he is still recognisable however young.

Esma Cannon is also incredibly young certainly the youngest I have ever seen her, I know her principally from the TV comedy show The Rag Trade.

Joan Hickson is fairly young but always recognisable, in anything I have ever seen her in.

Richard Green I will always remember from an old TV show from my childhood, that of Robin Hood.

The funniest thing for me about this old flick is the comment made in the early part of the film, where Richard Green's character is being shown around the village. There are plenty of local businesses with the family name of Bucket, and he is told that "the village call the name Bucket but the family call it Bouquet".

Why on earth should that be remotely funny?

Because that is exactly the same as in a far more recent TV comedy, Keeping Up Appearances.

There the principle character is Hyacinth and her husbands family name is Bucket. But as an incorrigible social climber she insists, on calling the family name Bouquet.

A pleasant and amusing but far from brilliant old British comedy, more often than not it is too silly for its own good, and some of the comedy bits are a bit awkward. The biggest problem with it all is however that the plot is tad too complex, in view of the light-hearted manner in which the material is treated. Still, the film certainly has its fair share of virtues. The cinematographer makes good use of lime lapse and zooming, plus the set design is interesting. Having Moore Marriott on hand is always a good thing too, even though this time he is not quite as delightful as usual. The special effects are okay for the time, and so is the overall quality of the picture. It is nothing really special, but it is quite satisfactory stuff.