Neutral Port

Skipper Will Fyffe and most of his crew row their lifeboat into the neutral port of Esperanto, where the local officials wear comic-opera uniforms and the language is probably Interlingua. He explains to British consul Leslie Banks that the Germans sank his ship before war was declared, and they're going to provide him a new one. Meanwhile, Banks is distracted by daughter Phyllis Calvert's cowardly commando boyfriend, Hugh McDermott. Besides a sunk ship, Fyffe has the problem of bar owner Yvonne Arnaud, who wants him for her sixth husband, and the fact the locals throw him in jail every time he steals a German ship, which seems to happen every ten or fifteen minutes.

This comedy-drama is ably directed by cut-glass farce expert Marcel Varnel, who takes the script and keeps the gags to a minimum, allowing the actors the chance to play comedy the best way: absolutely straight.

See if you can spot 28-year-old Hugh Griffith in his uncredited screen debut. I couldn't.

It's 3 September 1939 in the Mediterranean port of Esperanto. Anxious civilians besiege the British consulate trying to get on a boat, but the consul (Leslie Banks) is busy playing a game of chess against his German counterpart (Sigurd Lohde) at the club. When war is declared, his assistant Jim (Hugh McDermott, for once not playing an American) brings him the news and the game is put to one side. Esperanto declares its neutrality, and the Hotel Adolf hedges its bets - displaying a portrait of the Fuhrer beneath a Union flag.

It's a nice opening scene, and Esperanto, where the police strut about in comic opera uniforms, is a little bit Wes Anderson. For a film released in 1940, the propaganda message is light touch and the Germans are not demonised. A developing storyline surrounds the Scharndorf, a German merchant ship that the British believe (correctly) is actually a covert supply ship for German U Boats. The consul is told to put someone with a radio transmitter on the ship to send its position to the Royal Navy so it can be sunk, and appoints Jim for the highly dangerous job, much to the horror of his daughter Helen (Phyllis Calvert), who is in love with Jim.

Unfortunately, the film does goes downhill from its opening scenes. Yvonne Arnaud's turn as bar owner Rosa Pirenti is a histrionic performance that simply overbears everything else. It's maybe not her fault (Arnaud is fine as Madame Lebouche in Tomorrow We Live). The director, Marcel Varnel, should just have told her to turn herself down from 11.

Things are not much improved by Will Fyffe as Ferguson, the skipper of a ship called the Annie Louise which is sunk offshore almost as soon as war breaks out and who Rosa is determined to marry. His turn as an amusingly cantankerous old sea salt falls just as flat as Arnaud's.

Despite being produced & directed by the team that also gave posterity 'Oh,Mr Porter!' for Gainsborough, this is a lifeless and laughless business which obviously never leaves Shepherd's Bush, typical of early films attempting to keep spirits up during the grim early years of the war.

Set in the neutral port of 'Esperanto' (probably the best joke in the film), most of the action takes place at 'The Hotel Adolf' (probably the second best joke in the film). The basic situation anticipates 'Casablanca', complete with competing factions singing at each other, with Frederick Valk as the ugly face of the Hun later personified by Conrad Veidt.

Instead of Humphrey Bogart as Rick, however, we get Yvonne Arnaud as Rosa Pirenti, who raises the prices the moment war is declared.

"Neutral Port" (1940) stars Will Fyffe, Leslie Banks, Yvonne Arnaud, Phyllis Calvert, Hugh McDermott, and many others in what can be considered a British WWII propaganda film, this, just post (3 months) the blitz occurring in London. It begins just prior to the declaration of war between Britain and Germany. A German submarine has just sunk Will Fyffe's boat, and now Fyffe comes into a neutral port where he hears of a German boat he can hi-jack as compensation for the one that was sunk. This "neutral" port is one he's been coming to often, as Yvonne Arnaud is now seeking Fyffe to become her fifth husband! This cute little war fluff has very deep underlying motives, but plays like fluff comedy, with Scottish actor Fyffe pulling out all the stops by being a crusty, but somewhat - and that's an operative word - canny Brit sea captain. He couldn't care less that war's been declared; he wants his own boat - again... Period. Oh, what he'll do to get it!

Lots of fun, though it's obvious that this is a plea for Brit unity against a formidable foe. With the year long blitz in progress as this was released, it became obvious, too, that this kind of fluff was not what was needed to win the war. With 1941 the seriousness of what was occurring changed forever the tenor of films about WW II. Will Fyffe shines, and Leslie Banks continues his series of very officious Brit characters (as opposed, say, to his 1932 characterization in "The Most Dangerous Game"! Where he played Zaroff). Yvonne Arnaud, who was already 47 when she made this film, was a French actress who spent her sometime career in films in British films until her last film, Jacques Tati's "Mon Oncle" (1958), the year of her death. She's a pip. Phyllis Calvert and Hugh McDermott have the most serious rôles in "Neutral Port", and though McDermott comes to the ultimate rescue of all involved, still plays lover to Calvert, daughter of Banks, and that love affair keeps an air of normalcy about this raucous play-up of war.

Directed by Marcel Varnel who's possibly best remembered as the director of things like "Chandu the Magician" (1932) and the two Will Hay films, "Oh, Mr. Porter!" (1937) and "Convict 99" (1938), among many others. Look quickly here, too, for Hugh Griffith in his second film. This is the debut film of Anton Diffring who ended up for decades as nasties in Brit and American films, usually as Nazis with nefarious intent.