Moore Marriott Movies
Making his screen debut in 1908's Dick Turpin, Moore Marriott eventually appeared in over 300 British films. A leading man in his earliest endeavors, Marriott began playing irascible, oftimes senile old codgers while still in his early 40s. He is best-remembered for his work as doddering, toothless Jeremiah Harbottle in such Will Hay comedies as Oh, Mr. Porter (1938) and Ask a Policeman (1939). Moore Marriott's last screen role was Uncle Pensternon in 1949's The History of Mr. Polly. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
H. G. Wells' non-fantasy efforts have, with the exception of Kipps, proven traditionally difficult to transfer to film. History of Mr. Polly occasionally suffers from too-close fidelity to its Wellsian source; one wishes that adaptor/director Anthony Pelissier could have "opened up" the story a bit more. Still, the film is impeccably cast: particularly good is John Mills as Alfred Polly, whose efforts to make a go in the business world continually come acropper. A humble draper's clerk, Polly is profoundly affected by a variety of personal relationships, most notably with colorful Uncle Jim (Finlay Currie) and his nagging wife Miriam (Betty Ann Davies). Ultimately, he finds happiness in an even humbler pursuit than the drapery business. Star John Mills' daughter Juliet shows up in a very minor role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Mills, Sally Ann Howes, (more)
- 1949
A window washer is hired to assist a woman get her jewels back from the thieves in this mystery comedy. ~ Rovi
- 1947
In this drama, a popular singer tires of the fast lane and decides to leave fame and fortune in favor of marriage. After the marriage, she and her groom settle in rural Ireland. Unfortunately their marital bliss, at least the husband's, is interrupted by a wicked lassie who blackmails him and threatens to tell his wife of their old affair is he doesn't pay. In desperation, he decides to kill the troublesome girl, but something goes terribly wrong. Fortunately, things for the singer turn out all right in the end. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
At a World War II emergency hospital, a postman dues under anesthetic during a relatively minor operation. One of the nurses who was present announces that the man's death was no accident, but a murder -- and then she, too, is murdered. The police are called in, led by Inspector Cockrill (Alastair Sim) of Scotland Yard, and he soon determines that any one of the five surviving members of the surgical team might have had a motive for the murders. In the course of his investigation, he also uncovers an array of both eccentric and ugly personal information about most of those present, but no killer that he can ascertain for certain. He must finally draw the murderer out by putting one of the suspects at risk. In the midst of the suspense are moments of droll comedy, of the sort that one would expect from a movie made by the authors of The Lady Vanishes, along with a palpably rich late wartime atmosphere which, surprisingly, did not repel war-weary audiences on either side of the Altantic. Indeed, Sim is so beguilingly witty and charismatic in his eccentric way as Inspector Cockrill, that the wonder is that there was never a follow-up movie or even a series built around his character. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alastair Sim, Leo Genn, (more)
- 1947
In this melodrama, a fisherman begins studying to be a doctor. Although he isn't finished with medical school, he begins treating his landlady's daughter who is believed to have a terminal illness. He seems to cure her, and the case draws a lot of attention, some of it negative because he was unlicensed when he treated her. He still does not have a degree when he marries the daughter and begins practicing osteopathy. He soon finds success and happiness until he begins having an affair. Later he jilts his mistress and she kills herself. During the autopsy he is appalled to learn that it was actually his misdiagnosis of her illness and the resulting medical treatment that caused her to die. The distraught osteopath then takes off and does not return until his wife, whose disease has come back, begs him to help her once again. He succeeds and their happiness resumes. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Beatty, Carol Raye, (more)
- 1945
Adapted from a novel by Osbert Sitwell, A Place of One's Own has a double-edged title: It refers to a physical place as well as a spiritual one. An elderly couple (played with a surplus of age makeup by Barbara Mullen and James Mason) purchase an old house. They've been warned that it's haunted by the spirit of a murdered girl, but decide to set up housekeeping anyway. The restless ghost responds to this intrusion by possessing the soul of Annette (Margaret Lockwood), the old couple's young live-in companion. Leading man Dennis Price is on hand as Dr. Selbie to attempt an emergency exorcism on the vulnerable Annette. A Place of One's Own is a serviceable "spook show" which might have even been better with a little more emotional involvement on the part of the principals. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, (more)
- 1945
Australian-born comic actor Vic Oliver was usually at his best on-screen when teamed with an unusually talented leading lady. Oliver's vis-a-vis in the British I'll be Your Sweetheart was film favorite Margaret Lockwood. Set in the early 1900s, the film concerns the trials and tribulations of musical-hall diva Edie Story (Lockwood), whose happy-go-lucky partner is one Sam Kahn (Oliver). Halfway through the film, Kahn is shunted to the background when Edie falls in love with aspiring songwriter Bob Fielding, played by up-and-coming Michael Rennie. The outcome of the plot is predicated on a Parliamentary decision which rescued songwriters from being gypped out of their royalties by unscrupulous "pirate" publishers, which happens more than once in the early reels to the luckless Fielding. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Margaret Lockwood, Vic Oliver, (more)
- 1945
Future Dr. Who star William Hartnell heads the cast of the 1949 sociopolitical melodrama The Agitator. Set in a British industrial town, the film stars Hartnell as idealistic union organizer Peter Pottinger. His value as an agitator is compromised when Peter falls heir to the very factory where he works. Now that he's "Capital," Peter finds that he hasn't a friend in the world: his old co-workers despise him for what he represents, while his new colleagues can't forget his previous radicalism. Perhaps to avoid movie-industry ramifications, Capital and Labor are treated with equal fairness in The Agitator. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- William Hartnell, Mary Morris, (more)
- 1944
Don't Take It to Heart is an amiable entry in the 1940s cycle of "ghost comedies". A British castle is rocked by a German bombing raid, releasing a jaunty wraith (Richard Greene) from his house-haunting job. As long as he's got the run of the castle, the ghost decides to take a hand in the romance between mistress-of-the-house Patricia Medina and young researcher Richard Bird. Also in line for ghostly visitation is the nasty landlord who holds the local townsfolk in his avaricious clutches. Don't Take It to Heart received almost uniformly good reviews from the British press, which during wartime was often resistant to comedy films. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Greene, David Horne, (more)
- 1944
In this sci-fi comedy, a nutty inventor and his loyal butler use his time machine to travel to Elizabethan times. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1944
The inspiration for this British seriocomedy was Victor Skutezky's stage play She Met Him One Sunday. "She" is Moya Malone (Barbara White), an Irish maid living in Liverpool. "He" is Tom Stevens (Robert Beatty), a Canadian sailor. That "one Sunday" is a busy one, encompassing a few romantic strolls down the dock, Moya's renouncing of her servant status, and a run-in with crooks. Playwright Skutezky also served as producer of It Happened One Sunday. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Beatty, Barbara White, (more)
- 1943
Millions Like Us is a fundamentally honest dramatization of the British "home front" during World War II. Patricia Roc plays a worker in a defense plant who lives in an all-female rooming house. Shy and sheltered, Roc loses some of her inhibitions when she falls in love with an airman (Gordon Jackson). After they marry, he is killed in battle. Roc's coworkers and friends rally round her, giving her the strength to persevere. Millions Like Us attempts to show the temporary breakdown of the British class structure during the war, with everyone--highborn to low--pitching in, working together, and bolstering one another's morale. That the old social system would inevitably resume after the war wasn't important to British movie fans, who lined up in droves to see Millions Like Us. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eric Portman, Patricia Roc, (more)
- 1942
British radio funster Arthur Askey inherits British film comedian Will Hay's longtime stooges Moore Marriot and Graham Moffatt in Back Room Boy. Big-Hearted Askey plays a cuckoo scientist seeking peace and quiet in a Scottish lighthouse. No such luck: the house is being used as a rendezvous for Nazi spies. Beyond the presence of Marriot and Moffatt, one gets the impression that Back Room Boy was originally intended as a Will Hay vehicle, inasmuch as Hay's longtime scripters Val Guest and Marriot Edgar wrote the yarn. Young Googie Withers fares well in an a thankless leading-lady assignment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1941
In this musical, the on-air rivalry between a married pair of American radio stars, each hosting a different show heats to boiling when they each have British evacuees on their shows. The wife gets a fellow who claims to live in a castle. A brouhaha ensues as he is believed to be the long-lost heir of a prominent lord. The trouble begins when her husband learns the truth about the supposed "nobleman." The wife doesn't believe her husband and so both set off for Merry Olde England to learn the truth. Many comical adventures ensue. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1941
In the late 1930s-early 1940s, diminutive British music-hall and radio comedian Arthur Askey enjoyed a popularity commensurate to that of Hollywood's Abbott & Costello; accordingly, Askey's earliest starring films were all box-office bonanzas. In I Thank You, Askey and his perennial straight man Richard Murdoch are cast as Arthur and Stinker, members of a nearly bankrupt theatrical troupe. To raise some much-needed money, our heroes hire on as servants for Lady Randall (Lily Morris), who'd been an entertainer herself before marrying into the Upper Crust. When Lady Randall learns of Arthur and Stinker's plight, she bankrolls a major stage production for the boys' fellow performers, leading to the inevitable big-production-number finale. Way, way down the cast list of I Thank You is distinguished Shakespearean actor Felix Aylmer, who was seen to rather better advantage as Polonius in Lawrence Olivier's Hamlet. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, (more)
The Band Waggon was the BBC radio series that catapulted diminutive comic Arthur Askey to stardom as "Big-Hearted Arthur". This filmization adds a modern touch by taking place during a television broadcast (the BBC was beaming out a regular schedule of TV programs until the War broke out). Askey and his stooge Richard Murdoch take over an ancient castle to convert it to a video center. Jack Hylton's band is to be the main attraction-and in 1940, Hylton was a far bigger name than Askey, so guess who got top billing on most marquees. The castle is alleged to be haunted, but the nocturnal disturbances are actually the handiwork of Nazi spies. From here on, it's every man for himself. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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, Rovi
- 1939
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, Rovi
- Starring:
- Will Hay, Graham Moffatt, (more)
This film is an adaptation of the Brandon Thomas stage perennial Charley's Aunt, starring bespectacled British radio comedian Arthur Askey. Since Askey's professional nickname was "Big-Hearted Arthur", and since another Charley's Aunt starring Jack Benny went before the cameras in 1941, the title was slightly altered for its limited American release. Otherwise, the story is the same as ever. Dizzy Oxford student Lord Fancourt Babberly (Askey) is persuaded to pose as his pal Charley Wyckham's elderly aunt, in order that Charley's and Jack Chesney's girlfriends will have a proper female escort when they come to visit. The charade is complicated by the presence of Jack's father and of one of the girl's guardians, Stephen Spettigue, both of whom are required by the plotline to "romance" the phoney aunt. Further gumming up the works is the arrival of the genuine Aunt, with Lord Fancourt Babberly's erstwhile lady love in tow. Charley's Big-Hearted Aunt was updated and expanded to allow for the characteristic verbal patter of the then-popular Arthur Askey. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1939
A Girl Must Live is the philosophy of gold-digging chorus girls Gloria Lind (Renee Houston) and Clytie Devine (Lilli Palmer). Both feel that they could live most comfortably off the money inherited by the Earl of Pangborough (Hugh Sinclair) a handsome but unworldly nobleman. Despite the most strenuous efforts by Gloria and Clytie, it is sweet and demure chorine Leslie James (Margaret Lockwood) who claims the Earl as her husband. Robust comedy relief is provided by the venerable George Robey as a bibulous "sugar daddy". A Girl Must Live was one of three 1939 films directed by Carol Reed, still some distance removed from Odd Man Out, The Third Man and Oliver!. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Margaret Lockwood, Renee Houston, (more)
- 1939
In this British comedy, the chief of a fire company has his hands full as he tries to organize his bumbling crew of firemen. Their last call resulted in the total destruction of the town hall. The chief is desperate to restore their reputation. When he learns of a conspiracy to steal the crown jewels, he and his men attempt to catch the thieves. The firemen sneak up to the tower of London and mayhem ensues until they use a chemical foam fire extinguisher to bring the crooks to justice. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1939
Cheer Boys Cheer is a provincial British comedy with slight Romeo and Juliet undertones. Edmund Gwenn and Moore Marriott play rival brewery owners who detest the sight of one another. Not so their children--the son of one man, the daughter of the other--who fall in love. One glance at the film's title, and the viewer knows that boy and girl will not take poison in the end. For so modest an endeavor, Cheer Boys Cheer has a remarkable talent lineup: Edmund Gwenn, Moore Marriott, Jimmy O'Dea, Nova Pilbeam and Alexander Knox in front of the cameras, and Walter Forde and Ronald Neame on the production end. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1939
The Crazy Gang, a pre-Monty Python group of British "nut" comedians, were popular on stage and screen from 1935 through 1962. In The Frozen Limits, the comic sextet--Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen, Jimmy Nervo, Teddy Knox, Charlie Naughton and Jimmy Gold--head to Alaska to take advantage of the 1898 Gold Rush. Unfortunately it's now 1939, and no one is in a rush anymore--but better late than never. The Crazy Gang's antics are here amplified by the presence of old codger Moore Marriott, on leave from his regular stint in Britain's Will Hay films. Frozen Limits was directed by Marcel Varnel, a competent journeyman best known to American film buffs for his co-direction (with William Cameron Menzies) of Chandu the Magician (32). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1938
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, Rovi
- 1938
Beloved British comedian Will Hay plays Benjamin Twist, a disgraced school master who goes to an agency to apply for a job heading up a reform school for difficult boys. The agency mistakenly believes he is a Mr. Benjamin, a tough prison warden, and he is assigned to one of the country's nastiest prisons. Arriving drunk at his new job, Benjamin is mistakenly assumed to be a prisoner, christened "Convict 99" and put in a cell. There he meets Jerry the Mole, the prison's oldest resident, who has been working on an escape tunnel for years. Benjamin's innocence is soon discovered, and he takes over as warden, instituting some humane reforms. Unfortunately, he soon becomes the victim of a scam involving prison funds perpetrated by the real Convict 99 and Benjamin -- accompanied by those prisoners who are on his side -- must track down the crook and find a way of returning the money to the bank. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi
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