The Black Sheep of Whitehall ***½ (1942, Will Hay, John Mills, Basil Sydney, Frank Cellier, Felix Aylmer, Henry Hewitt, Thora Hird, Ronald Shiner, Joss Ambler) – Classic Movie Review 4538

Co-director Basil Dearden’s funny, fast-paced 1942 British World War Two comedy for Ealing Studios features Will Hay in his familiar and beloved joke schoolmaster guise as Professor Davis, a soppy schoolmaster teaching at a correspondence college who is confused with a university economics lecturer, Professor Davys (Henry Hewitt).

Professor Davis finds that a Nazi agent is pretending to be an economics expert seconded to the trade delegation and is trying to prevent a vital wartime trade treaty between England and South America. So then Professor Davis has to find the real economist and expose the Nazi agent.

A busy and exuberant Hay impersonates six characters, including a Scotland Yard policeman and a female nurse, and then goes on to rounds up Nazi spies in a spectacular chase finale. Hay also co-directs.

Screen-writers Angus MacPhail and John Dighton top off their tasty brew of slapstick buffoonery and sterling patriotism with an amusing manic chase. The film succeeds with the help of a strong cast, though co-star John Mills, just invalided out of the army, is squandered in a weak role as the school’s sole pupil.

Dame Thora Hird, (28 May 1911 – 15 March 2003) was a triple BAFTA award-winner.

Also in the estimable cast are Basil Sydney, Frank Cellier, Felix Aylmer, Henry Hewitt, Thora Hird (in her first film, as Joyce), Ronald Shiner, Joss Ambler, Leslie Mitchell, George Woodbridge, Roddie Hughes, Katie Johnson, Margaret Halstan (as matron), Owen Reynolds, Dorothy Hamilton, Barbara Valerie, Agnes Laughlan, Kenneth Griffith, George Merritt, Frank Allenby and Cyril Chamberlain.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4538

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Will Hay (6 December 1888 – 18 April 1949) was well known as a joke schoolmaster.