Charley’s (Big-Hearted) Aunt **** (1940, Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Graham Moffatt, Phyllis Calvert, Moore Marriott) – Classic Movie Review 9290

Director Walter Forde’s 1940 drag comedy Charley’s (Big-Hearted) Aunt is a fast-moving, high-spirited and funny reworking of the classic Brandon Thomas stage farce Charley’s Aunt to suit the talents of Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Graham Moffatt, Phyllis Calvert and Moore Marriott.

The new plot is about three undergraduates who are mounting a version of the original play. And, surprisingly, Arthur Askey isn’t Charley (Graham Moffatt is). But Askey still gets to dress up, very amusingly, as his Egyptologist South American auntie (from Brazil where the nuts come from), invented to impress the dean (J H Roberts).

[Spoiler alert] Of course Arthur’s real aunt (Jeanne de Casalis) turns up, the trio are found out and expelled. But all is well when the proctor (Felix Aylmer) marries the aunt. Oh how innocent it all seems!

Charley’s (Big-Hearted) Aunt is directed with due care and attention by Forde, a man who knew all about vintage British comedy.

Also in the cast are Wally Patch, Eliot Makeham, Peggy Evans, Elliott Mason and Donald Calthrop.

Charley’s (Big-Hearted) Aunt is directed by Walter Forde, runs 76 minutes, is made by Gainsborough Pictures and Gaumont British, is released by General Film Distributors, is written by Marriott Edgar, Val Guest, J O C Orton and Ralph Smart, based on Brandon Thomas’s stage farce Charley’s Aunt, is shot in black and white by Arthur Crabtree, is produced by Edward Black, is scored by Louis Levy, and is designed by Alex Vetchinsky.

It is shot at Shepherd’s Bush Studios, Shepherd’s Bush, London.

Brandon Thomas’s play opened in London on 21 December 1892.

Jack Benny filmed the play in the 1941 Charley’s Aunt.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9290

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