I saw Fighting Stock again recently and I had forgotten just what a little gem this film is. English farce at its best. The story unfolds rapidly and this, combined with the fast pace of the dialogue means that the viewer never has a moment in which to lose interest. The cast has no weak link - most of these actors cut their teeth in rep and farce and the three male leads Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn, and Robertson Hare all worked together many times in theatre before collaborating for the cinema and they have a terrific comedic chemistry together. I was struck by the amount of smut and innuendo in the dialogue considering the date of this film. Some lines could be straight out of the Carry On films that came some 30 or 40 years later. Often a film has a certain amount of padding, by which I mean unnecessary scenes that are placed there to try and turn a short story into a feature film. This is not the case with Fighting Stock - every scene is carefully crafted and serves to introduce a new character or further the plot. There is no dead wood at all. Despite now being more than 75 years old there is so much to recommend this fantastic little comedy which deserves to be more widely known.
Review of Fighting Stock
