Les marrants terribles

I have to confess that back in the fifties Ronnie Shiner was one of my favourites.Looking at this film I can but wonder why.He really is far too broad a comedian for the screen.He lacks all subtlety.Furthermore it doesn't help if you have previously watched Good Morning Boys as you will know how well a great comedian,Will Hay,was able to transform the material into a very funny farce.There are many familiar actors in their twenties and thirties acting as schoolboys as was the case with the original film.There is only one genuinely funny moment in the film.Shiner goes into a cinema and sees himself on screen as a cowboy and does a double take.By the way this film was shown at least 5 years before Beyond Our Ken started on radio.Now that was funny..

I was actually an extra in this film, as a schoolboy earning some holiday money. Even to me the scenes I was involved in seemed very contrived, and less funny than I would have hoped, following retakes. For instance Ronald Shiner had problems saying "Dickory Dock", rhyming slang for clock, and that scene was shot 21 times before Carstairs was satisfied. It was the first time I had seen Ronnie Corbett, and it is amazing how his stellar career has taken off since those early days. I filled in the school holidays with a lot of film extra work, and in my memory, this seemed the most laboured production, and reviewing the film after more than fifty years, this comes through on scree.

Midway swindler Ronald Shiner has to go on the run and lands at a public school which is going under. Being rather free with his methodology, his boys cheat their way into a trip to France, which sets up the finale

The reliable John Paddy Carstairs does what he can with this Will Hay formula, with Shiner at his loudest and most obnoxious in the lead. It winds up, as you might expect, in a series of mini-skits that are put together adequately and shot and edited frenetically. I'm not a fan of Shiner but his old-fashioned elbow-to-the-rib fast talker has its fans. With Anthony Newley, Alfie Bass, Mary Jerrold, and Ronnie Corbett.

Quite a funny film at times, though maybe it's just so silly that it becomes funny. The first bit that will have you laughing is when Fortescue, who has a nose like Arthur Treacher, but isn't *actually* Arthur Treacher, escapes from the men chasing him by climbing over a wall, and landing in a Professor's garden party type of thing. The bonus? He's dressed like a professor himself, so the other men have an interesting time trying to find him. Fortescue manages to bluff that he's a Professor from an Australian university, and what do you know - ends up with a job as a teacher. The boys run him through the mill as good as they would any new teacher, until finally the board of education cottons on that none of them seem to be learning anything, and tells them they have to sit for some exams and pass with flying colours, or the school may be closed down. Some quick thinking - and cheating - ends up winning the young scholars a trip to France, and this is where the fun really begins, as one of the boy's brother has recently escaped from jail and wants to steal a necklace which just happens to be in the Paris museum...

It may sound stupid, but trust me, it's funny. And young Anthony Newley is a treat to watch as a cheeky school boy!

If memory serves me correctly this is a remake of the 1937 Will Hay comedy "Good Morning Boys", to which it compares quite favourably. Coming a year before the cycle of St Trinians films began, it, and by default the Will Hay schoolmaster comedies of the thirties from which it derives, can be viewed as serving as a kind of prototype for that series. In any event it seems to me that the St Trinians films have far more in common with this little picture than they do with the far more sophisticated humour of "The Happiest Days of Your Life"(1950) with which they are usually linked.

Although for the most part he is generally forgotten today, I always found Ronald Shiner quite a likable comedy actor, and to be frank, I probably prefer him in this role to Will Hay, who in his guise as schoolmaster could become a little irritating at times. Interestingly I also find him a little reminiscent of Shemp Howard in places. I find it frustrating that I have been able to view so few of the films listed in his filmography.

Other familiar faces notable in the cast are a young Anthony Newley and a young Ronnie Corbett, Mary Jerrold as Mrs Bagshot brings Katie Johnson to mind......and there's also Richard Wattis as ...you guessed it.. a Ministry of Education official.