Copyright 14 February 1937 by Gaumont British Picture Corp. of America. Released in the U.K. and the U.S.A. through Gaumont British. No New York opening. U.S. release: 26 July 1937. U.K. release: March 1937. Australian release through 20th Century-Fox: September 1937. 79 minutes.
U.S. release title (in a version cut to 74 minutes): WHERE THERE'S A WILL.
NOTES: Re-made in 1952 by director John Paddy Carstairs as "Top of the Form", starring Ronald Shiner.
COMMENT: A most agreeable Will Hay vehicle. Hay is usually at his best as the befuddled schoolmaster and here is helped out by perennial stooges Graham Moffatt and Peter Gawthorne. The wonderfully aristocratic Martita Hunt is also on hand, plus the ultra-lovely Lilli Palmer as a nightclub vamp. She even has a song, which she renders in her own voice too. Beautifully photographed and costumed, we could only wish that her part were larger. And another nice surprise - an unbilled appearance by Charles Hawtrey as a too-knowledgeable student.
Director Marcel Varnel keeps the pace crackling along nicely. Of course the story is basically a variant of Hay's earlier Boys Will Be Boys which I think is funnier, though many critics opine that this is the better movie. But Hay is such a wonderfully eccentric yet thoroughly likeable comedian, seedy but never shabby, that you owe it yourself to enjoy both films. As for the re-make, with brassy Ronald Shiner, it seems so mechanical compared to the seemingly effortlessly humor the stumbling Hay and his sharper but also not-so-wise-to-the-world students evoke here.
U.S. release title (in a version cut to 74 minutes): WHERE THERE'S A WILL.
NOTES: Re-made in 1952 by director John Paddy Carstairs as "Top of the Form", starring Ronald Shiner.
COMMENT: A most agreeable Will Hay vehicle. Hay is usually at his best as the befuddled schoolmaster and here is helped out by perennial stooges Graham Moffatt and Peter Gawthorne. The wonderfully aristocratic Martita Hunt is also on hand, plus the ultra-lovely Lilli Palmer as a nightclub vamp. She even has a song, which she renders in her own voice too. Beautifully photographed and costumed, we could only wish that her part were larger. And another nice surprise - an unbilled appearance by Charles Hawtrey as a too-knowledgeable student.
Director Marcel Varnel keeps the pace crackling along nicely. Of course the story is basically a variant of Hay's earlier Boys Will Be Boys which I think is funnier, though many critics opine that this is the better movie. But Hay is such a wonderfully eccentric yet thoroughly likeable comedian, seedy but never shabby, that you owe it yourself to enjoy both films. As for the re-make, with brassy Ronald Shiner, it seems so mechanical compared to the seemingly effortlessly humor the stumbling Hay and his sharper but also not-so-wise-to-the-world students evoke here.