Oh, Daddy!

When the story begins, Lord Pye and his friend, Rupert Boddy, are at a meeting of the local Purity League...an organization that is basically against anything that smacks of fun. The pair are appointed to go to a big meeting of the League...but instead of attending the conference, the pair run amok having a great time in London. Pye, in particular, has fun drinking and carousing with a lovely young cabaret singer...and he needs to be careful, since he is a married man. What's to come of all this? See the film.

This is an old fashioned film that manages to still entertain. Not a brilliant film but a fun one.

An antique period piece, but with quite a bit of nostalgic charm for anyone who remembers the PG Wodehouse/Ben Travers era of English comedy writing. However creaky the film, it is good to see contemporary comedians such as Leslie Henson and Robertson Hare at their peak. And I never before realised that Frances Day really did have considerable screen presence.

Just when you thought you'd seen all the good 1930s musicals you discover this fabulous fun film. Whilst it's not quite FOOTLIGHT DAMES OF 1933 level, it's got that similar feel and a million times better than the lame WB musicals of the late 30s.

Like DAMES, the plot concerns a group of killjoys called The Purity League who are taught the error of their ways when they encounter a sassy sexy showgirl. Over in America the real Catholic Legion of Decency had just imposed the puritanical censorship of the Hays Code on all of Hollywood's output so it was left to England to keep the flag of saucy fun flying. Yes, we could still make silly and irreverent films with very scantily clad chorus girls as this demonstrates.

This is an absolute joy. The story is engaging and still genuinely funny all these years later. The script is witty and the acting is natural with likeable characters you feel you can get to know. The cast are perfect: Robertson Hare is hilarious, music hall star Leslie Henson is fantastic - what a shame he made so few pictures and Frances Day is stunningly sexy with a refreshingly real personality. Coupled with dynamic direction and exceptionally high production values, this is an absolute must for fans of those original Warner musicals.

Why the production is such high quality is because of 'sibling rivalry.' In 1935, Michael Balcon ran both Gaumont-British and Gainsborough. At Gaumont, Victor Saville (who actually founded Gainsborough with Balcon and Graham Cutts a decade earlier) made the classy, big budget musicals such as those with the world's most beautiful actress (Jessie Matthews) whereas Graham Cutts at Gainsborough made the B movies. Cutts wanted to show Balcon that he too could make pictures just as classy as those his former colleague made down the road at Gaumont and really succeeded with this....even without the divinity that was Miss Matthews!

This film might be seen by today's film buffs as an early showcase for the work of directors Michael Powell (who storylined it) and Charles Frend (who edited it), but it really should be taken at face value. It's a bit of fun, having a laugh at the expense of the moral minority who even in 1935 were starting to annoy the cinematic industry. There's grand performances from Leslie Henson and Robertson Hare, who went on to play the Chauffer in The Young Ones. It's worth watching just to see how films were made in 1935 and to see how much influence the night club scene had on television's Jeeves & Wooster, where Charles Frend's montage of champagne filled glasses, bright city lights and drunken toffs show how much can be achieved with a minimal budget.

A rare chance to see the almost forgotten Leslie Henson and why he was such a popular star of his day. He is funny throughout this typically frothy comedy of the time which also spotlights the kind of entertainment to be seen in contemporary West End nightclubs. Robertson Hare and the supremely bombastic Alfred Drayton are on good form too, though the latter has little to do, while Frances Day is effervescent and fun. In actuality England didn't go in much for the likes of Purity Leagues, which reflects the story's origins from a German play.