George Formby Movies
From the late 1930s through the early 1940s, George Formby was Britain's most popular movie comic. With his enormous grin and his ever-present ukulele, he kept audiences chuckling with such low-brow slapstick films as Keep Your Seats Please (1936) and Keep Fit (1937). Formby also worked on the screenplays of some of his earlier films and in the early '40s occasionally produced films. For the 1940 film It's in the Air, Formby also wrote song lyrics. Formby started performing in childhood in the north of England. This led to his working on radio, where he gained a national audience. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1977
This humorous video is a compilation of a multitude of comedic clips from various British films spanning from 1930 to 1970. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1946
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
- 1945
In this thriller, an aspiring actor from London lets a room in a hotel filled with theatrical personalities. No sooner does he arrive, than the man in the adjoining room, an Australian acrobat, is found murdered. Being the newest tenant, the Londoner is immediately blamed. But then the killer attempts to murder him while he wanders through a Hall of Mirrors. The Londoner lives and catches the real killer thereby clearing his name. He then gets an acting job. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1944
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
- 1943
In this patriotic but romantic musical comedy, a young teacher runs a day school for the workers at a munitions factory. As she makes arrangements to locate the school in the empty home next to her apartment building, she falls in love with the property owner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1943
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
- 1943
Toothy, ukelele-plucking British music hall favorite George Formby is at it again in Bell-Bottom George. From the title, you'd think that Formby has joined the Royal Navy. Well, sort of: when he's declared 4F (or the British equivalent of 4F), Formby poses as a Jack Tar to impress his girl friend Ann Firth. After a series of fitfully funny complications, Formby captures a nest of Nazi spies. Bell-Bottom George was a hit with both British military and civilian audiences; American videotape aficionados may have to run the picture twice to fully grasp all the colloquial humor and wartime slang. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1942
This musical is loosely based upon the career of the British "Forces' Sweetheart" Vera Lynn, a popular BBC radio singer who spent much time entertaining the troops in London. It all begins when she falls in love with a Scottish soldier who breaks her heart when he jilts her in favor of her best friend. Following the break up, she decides to leave London and spend her time entertaining troops all over Europe. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1942
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
- 1941
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
- 1941
In this comedy, a groom's constant jealousy creates domestic turmoil for his devoted bride. More trouble comes when he buys a lot of untried material for the lingerie factory where he works as a foreman. The material proves flimsy and he is fired. Things get worse when his overbearing and disapproving mother moves in. Fortunately, the poor bumbler's wife has a keen business sense and is able to turn her husband's failure into a wonderful success. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Formby, Edward Chapman, (more)
- 1940
In this British WW II comedy, a brave member of the Police War Reserve eventually becomes a hero when he exposes a conspiracy to sabotage the battleship Hercules on her first voyage. But at first his fellow officers believe that he is one of the enemy agents and pursue him down the docks, causing him to prematurely launch the ship and save it from exploding. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1940
The original British title of this wartime musical farce was George Takes The Air. George is George Formby, the toothy little chappy with the ukulele whose films made oodles of money in the 1930s and 1940s. This time, Formby is an 'umble Army private mistaken for a dashing RAF pilot. Had their not been a slapstick airborne finale, audiences might have grown violent. Manning the cameras in It's in the Air was future director Ronald Neame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Formby, Polly Ward, (more)
- 1940
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
- Starring:
- George Formby, Phyllis Calvert, (more)
- 1939
British Writer/director Anthony Kimmins was willing to expand his range from drawing room comedy to the "low" humors of the provincial music halls. Kimmins' Come on George is an unadorned vehicle for toothy, ukelele-strumming North Country comedian George Formby. Formby plays a somewhat overage stableboy who is the only person able to calm a jittery race horse. In the foregone conclusion, Formby rides the horse to victory. Come on George was a product of George Formby's peak movie years; after the war he suffered a professional eclipse and was back making the cheap programmers (vide George in Civvy Street) whence he had started his cinematic career. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1939
Most of British regional comedian George Formby's vehicles were released in the US through Columbia Pictures; somehow Trouble Brewing slipped through the cracks. Bucktoothed Formby plays a newspaper printer who wins big at the racetrack. Unfortunately he is paid off in counterfeit bills. To avoid the long arm of the law, Formby sets about collaring the crooks himself. The trail leads inexorably (and hilariously) to Formby's own boss. George Formby's leading lady in Trouble Brewing was the gloriously named Googie Withers, later a major British film actress specializing in murder melodramas. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1938
Toothy, ukelele-plucking British comedian dominates the proceedings in I See Ice. The nonsensical story concerns the misadventures of a prop man (George Formby) for a travelling ice-skating troupe. Inventing a new sort of candid camera in his spare time, our hero gets into a passel of trouble when he photographs what he shouldn't. Though well directed and exceptionally well cast (Kay Walsh and Cyril Ritchard appear in support), I See Ice wouldn't amount to a hill of beans without the presence of the ebullient Formby, who halts the action every once in a while for one of his unsubtly risque comic songs. Not surprisingly, the film was infinitely more popular as a "regional" than as a big-city attraction. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Formby, Kay Walsh, (more)
- 1937
In this comedy, a scrawny barber must compete with a muscle bound thug for the love of a manicurist. Naturally the manicurist is most attracted to the brute until the barber can prove that he is a crook. The two then duke it out in the boxing ring. Later it is the weakling who gets the girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1937
In this comedy, a bumbling factory worker at a record manufacturing plant accidentally destroys an irreplaceable master disc. The quick thinking fellow switches the broken one with a recording of his own voice. As luck would have it, his song becomes a major hit. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1936
In this comedy, a young man learns that he is supposed to inherit some valuable jewels and enlists the aid of his shyster lawyer to see that he gets them. The trouble is the stones are tucked away into the lining of one of six antique chairs that have mysteriously vanished. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1935
In this comedy, an itinerant fellow finds himself a detective after he inherits his late uncle's agency. Nothing in his varied job experiences has prepared him for sleuthing, but he tries hard and eventually catches a notorious criminal who has been eluding the police for many years. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1935
No Limit is purely and simply a vehicle for chipmunk-cheeked British comic George Formby. He plays a provincial auto mechanic who dreams of the Main Chance. He gets it when he decides to soup up an old dirt-bike and enter the vehicle in an upcoming championship race. The climactic road sequences were picturesquely filmed on the Isle of Man. Supporting George is Florence Desmond, one of the foremost celebrity impressionists of her time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Formby, Florence Desmond, (more)
