Film Review
One of the high points of Will Hay's period at Ealing Studios is this
enjoyable wartime comedy in which the incomparable comic actor makes a
welcome return to academia, playing the inept schoolmaster character
that originally brought him fame. To make up for the absence of
Hay's former long-suffering stooges Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt,
he is partnered with two comparable comic talents, in the guise of
Claude Hulbert and Charles Hawtrey (the latter of whom would later
become one of the stars of the
Carry On films).
In the latter years of his hugely successful career, Will Hay seemed to
find a new lease of life and the films he made during the war are
amongst his most entertaining.
The Ghost of St. Michael's is
certainly one of the most enjoyable of Will Hay's comedies, with a
cracking plot (which owes something to Agatha Christie), quick fire
comic exchanges and a tireless sense of fun.
It hardly seems to matter that the plot makes absolutely no sense at all.
The scene in which Hay's beleaguered schoolmaster attempts to explain
the law of gravity (which was apparently invented by Isaac Pitman whilst
firing an arrow at an apple on someone's head) is a classic. Yet
this is just one of many superlatively performed set pieces that
typically inflate a modest gag to ludicrous proportions through Will
Hay's trademark anti-establishment humour. With its abundance of
jokes,
The Ghost of St. Michael's
is easily one of the classics of British film comedy.
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
During WWII, William Lamb travels to the Isle of Skye in Scotland to
take up the post of a science teacher at school that has temporarily
relocated to Dunbain Castle. According to the caretaker, the
castle is haunted by the ghost of a man who killed himself centuries
ago. Whenever the sound of bagpipes is heard, someone will soon
die in the castle. Unimpressed by these childish superstitions,
Lamb throws himself into his new job, but gets off to a bad
start. His incompetence and lack of knowledge about his subject
(or anything for that matter) make him an easy target for his
too-clever-by-half schoolboys. One of the teachers, Mr Humphries,
recognises Lamb, having worked with him at another school, and advises
the headmaster, Dr Winter, to dismiss him. Not long afterwards,
Dr Winter is dead, poisoned by rat poison which Lamb prepared for
him. When Humphries is appointed as Winter's successor, his first
act is to sack Lamb, but then he too dies in mysterious
circumstances. Another teacher, Hilary Teasdale, steps into the
breach, encouraged by Lamb, who is determined to expose the killer
before the school runs out of potential headmasters...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.