In order to appreciate a George Formby comedy, you must put yourself a bit in the time it was made. The world was at the start of the second World War, people needed something really harmless as distraction, and the very harmless ukulele player Formby was exactly that.
The movie follows a pretty straight forward recipe, with George as a naive nobody getting a chance for success and taking it, with some complications on the way. There are competitors who want to stop him, there is a misunderstanding that gets him accused of theft, and there is a pretty girl to fall in love with. There is little question of how the movie will end, few surprises, it is mainly a question of how you get there.
The movie is enjoyable, pretty funny, but rarely laugh-out-loud funny. It has gags but they are not always funny, like the young boy "Squib" (which I can't find in the cast) who is mostly annoying, a very cliché "Dennis the menace"-style boy. In the gag department, it can't compete with a Marx movie, they tend to have a higher tempo with more really funny gags. It is funniest when it isn't forcing laughs at us (like at the fair). The funniest humor is in Formby's character, dumb as a brick but kind as a nun. Part of the comedy, unique to Formby, is the ukulele- playing to silly songs.
Some effects are extremely cheesy but perfectly fine for 1939 - live with it. Some gags are old, just live with that too. Just get into your old school feeling and enjoy a British comedy classic for what it is. Who cares if it is dated, it is Formby, with a bigger horse grin than The Lamb, I mean Maneater.
The movie follows a pretty straight forward recipe, with George as a naive nobody getting a chance for success and taking it, with some complications on the way. There are competitors who want to stop him, there is a misunderstanding that gets him accused of theft, and there is a pretty girl to fall in love with. There is little question of how the movie will end, few surprises, it is mainly a question of how you get there.
The movie is enjoyable, pretty funny, but rarely laugh-out-loud funny. It has gags but they are not always funny, like the young boy "Squib" (which I can't find in the cast) who is mostly annoying, a very cliché "Dennis the menace"-style boy. In the gag department, it can't compete with a Marx movie, they tend to have a higher tempo with more really funny gags. It is funniest when it isn't forcing laughs at us (like at the fair). The funniest humor is in Formby's character, dumb as a brick but kind as a nun. Part of the comedy, unique to Formby, is the ukulele- playing to silly songs.
Some effects are extremely cheesy but perfectly fine for 1939 - live with it. Some gags are old, just live with that too. Just get into your old school feeling and enjoy a British comedy classic for what it is. Who cares if it is dated, it is Formby, with a bigger horse grin than The Lamb, I mean Maneater.