Spare a Copper (1941) - film review

In 1939, whilst the battleship HMS Hercules is being fitted out at a Merseyside shipyard, the authorities learn that Nazi saboteurs are operating in the area and may attempt to wreck the ship before its launch.  McDermott, the head of the shipbuilding company, is persuaded to secretly bring in a handful of policemen to guard against the Hercules being sabotaged.   This development is soon brought to the attention of Brewster, the owner of a theatre and amusement park, who happens to be the head of the Nazi saboteurs.  Brewster arranges that one of his men, Shaw, enters a police motorcycle trial which will decide who is recruited to protect McDermott’s shipyard.  Another entrant in the trial is War Reserve policeman George Carter, whose dream is to be a member of the Flying Squad.  With a little skulduggery, Shaw triumphs over Carter in the trial.   George is consoled by the fact that he finally gets to wear his policeman’s uniform at a police concert which is attended by his new girlfriend, Jane Gray.  Eager to please, George is delighted when he is sent off on his first assignment, to distract a night watchman at a warehouse where the propeller blades for the battleship are being stored.  Unwittingly, George becomes a pawn in the saboteurs’ plan and when the blades go missing he is mistaken for one of the saboteurs.  Determined to clear his name, George goes on the run and beats a hasty path to the one man he knows he can trust: Brewster...

George Formby singlehandedly takes on the might of Nazi Germany, armed only with his famous ukulele and a shy schoolboy grin, in this anarchic propaganda piece from Ealing Studios (or Associated Talking Pictures as it was known at the time).  Formby was at the height of his popularity when he made Spare a Copper, the highest paid performer in Britain and a major box office draw.  This was to be one of his last great film comedies.  After his next film, the classic Turned Out Nice Again (1941), Formby’s film career would show a sudden and irreversible decline.  This is the only one of the comedian’s films to be directed by John Paddy Carstairs, who subsequently went on to score many notable successes with another British comedy giant, Norman Wisdom. 

Like many comedies made in Britain during the war, Spare a Copper served two purposes - to boost morale and entertain the folks back home at a time of great uncertainty and distress, and to make the point that everyone had a part to play in the fight against Fascism.  Although popular in its day, the film is far from flawless – the plot is so convoluted that in the end you forget who are the good guys and who are the villains, and back projection is used to a ludicrous extent, presumbly because the action sequences were too costly or too difficult to shoot for real. 

Yet, despite these failings, Spare a Copper still stands as one of Formby’s most entertaining cinematic outings.  If the comedian isn’t having us rolling in the aisles with his hilarious slapstick routines (which include a madcap chase that culminates in a hair raising wall of death duel), he is knocking us back into our seats with his enchanting musical numbers.   The latter include such memorable Formby hits as Ukulele Man, On the Beat and I Wish I was Back on the Farm - each of which is a show-stopping delight that instantly transports us back to a warmer, far less cynical age when innocence was considered a virtue.   Was there ever a more charming comedian than the ukulele-strumming George Formby?

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