Marcel Varnel Movies

Tavern owner Formby works to turn a waitress from her current employer, a rival tavern owner, when Formby falls in love with her. ~ All Movie Guide

In this British comedy, set in Tangleton, a small English village, a handyman finds himself in trouble when he inadvertently assists two London reporters in their investigation of corruption in the town's postwar plans. To protect themselves, the town fathers have the handyman destroy several incriminating housing forms. Unfortunately an errant gust of wind sends the flying. Enlisting the aid of an eccentric inventor, the handyman succeeds in getting the corrupt officials out of office. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Mechanic Formby bests a neighboring rival at a Home Guard exercise and when others obtain an army weapon, Formby converts a truck into a tank to get the weapon back. ~ All Movie Guide

A bashful artist finds all kinds of trouble in this comedy. A handyman by profession, the shy fellow loves to paint, but can only paint the heads of his models as he is too embarrassed to render the rest of their nude forms. The portraits are very good, and later, in a commercial art class, other students add bodies to his heads. This gets the handyman in all sorts of hot water with the models when the painting is used as an advertisement for soap. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy of mistaken identity, an amiable fellow decides to help out his singing South American look-a-like who must fulfill a few obligations for his opera company. Mayhem ensues when the bogus singer finds himself pursued by paid assassins. Fortunately, the whole mess is straightened out in the end and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Scottish stage, radio and film favorite Will Fyffe heads the cast of Neutral Port. The star is cast as crusty Captain Ferguson, who is forced to dry-dock his torpedoed ship at the mythical port of Esperanto. Anxious not to injure its neutrality, the country refuses to allow Ferguson to seize a Nazi supply ship as compensation for the loss of his own vessel. But the good captain takes matters into his own hands by stealing not one but two German ships. When these are shot from under him, the captain returns to Esperanto to face the consequences, but chances are he'll be back in business again before the sun sets. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Let George Do It is one of the best and most successful of the George Formby vehicles. The toothy, guitar-strumming Formby plays a dimwitted entertainer who is mistaken for a notorious Nazi spy. The misunderstanding is played to the hilt, culminating with our hero battling the forces of the Axis on the fields of Norway. The film's highlight is a bakery routine which dates back to Charlie Chaplin's 1914 epic Dough and Dynamite. Let George Do It was distinguished by the leading-lady presence of Phyllis Calvert, just on the verge of bigger things. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The popular British troupe The Crazy Gang do their zany thing in this fast-paced comedy adventure. The story begins as the Gang balloon themselves over enemy lines. There they become friends with a crazy old prisoner who has the plans for a tunnel-boring tank tattooed upon his back. To get him out, they dress him up as Hitler. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Matchless British comedy star Will Hay, he of the supercilious sniff and ill-fitting pince-nez, stars in Ask a Policeman, a follow-up to Hay's successful 1938 comedy-thriller Oh, Mr. Porter. Once again, the incompetent Hay is transferred to a place where he'll do the least amount of harm. This time he's an inept police sergeant, shipped away to a sleepy rural village where no crime has occurred for years. Bored out of his gourd, Hay, together with his perennial stooges Graham Moffatt (fat and cheeky) and Moore Marriott (toothless and senile), plots to "create" a crime wave by leaving a keg of brandy unprotected. They plan to arrest the first person who appropriates the keg and charge him with smuggling. Not surprisingly, the gleesome threesome runs afoul of genuine smugglers. As with most of the best Will Hay comedies of the 1930s, Ask a Policeman is top-heavy with behind-the-scenes talent: among the screenwriters were director Val Guest and frequent Hitchcock collaborator Sidney Gilliat. Best bit: Moore Marriot's rambling recitation of an ancient ghost legend. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Loves of Mme. DuBarry was the American title of the 1935 British operetta I Give My Heart, based on the stage musical The DuBarry. German actress Gitta Alpar stars as Jeanne, the young 18th century Parisian milliner who sleeps her way to the uppermost rungs of French aristocracy, emerging at last as the glamorous Madame DuBarry, mistress of Louis XV (Owen Nares). Refusing to gloss over DuBarry's sexual peccadilloes (as previous films with Norma Talmadge and Dolores del Rio had done), the film presents the "heroine" as a whore, pure and simple-or, on second thought, not so pure and simple! Particularly troublesome for American censors was a scene in which DuBarry is depicted as a resident of a bawdy house. Otherwise, The Loves of Madame DuBarry is standard historical-drama fare, allowing dozens of top European actors to play "dress-up" for 90 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An "answer" to Paul Robeson's Sanders of the River, Old Bones of the River stars comedian Will Hay as Professor Tibbetts, a member of TWIRP ("Teaching and Welfare Institute for the Reform of Pagans"). Not especially suited to his job of bringing English education to native tribes in Africa -- as he arrives, he is still trying to learn the native language through phonograph record lessons -- Tibbetts quickly falls victim to a trick by a duplicitous native prince, involving sneaking a gin still into the country. Tibbetts makes his way to Kombooli High, where his students wear Eton collars with little else. (Tibbetts makes do with a mortarboard and safari shorts.) Things are proceeding reasonably well when the Commissioner takes ill with malaria, and Tibbetts is forced to take over his responsibilities. He travels upriver to begin his tax collecting chores (goats or rubber being perfectly acceptable in lieu of actual money), meeting two old cronies of his in the process and rescuing a baby from an untimely death by sacrifice. Unfortunately, Tibbetts and his pals make rather a mess of things and manage to roil up tensions that result in a native uprising, but things eventually come out alright in the end. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide