Sun 24 Apr 2022
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: MY LEARNED FRIEND (1943).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Films: Comedy/Musicals , Reviews[8] Comments
MY LEARNED FRIEND. Ealing, 1943. Will Hay, Claude Hulbert, Mervyn Johns, and Ernest Thesiger. Written by Angus MacPhail & John Dighton. Directed by Basil Dearden & Will Hay. Currently streaming on Plex.
Will Hay — for reasons that escape me — was an enduring star of British stage, screen and airwaves. His observations seem obvious to me, his delivery deliberate, and his timing tortuous. Still, you can’t argue with Success (Or rather, you can, but It won’t listen,) he made a score of well-received films, and I actually enjoyed this one.
Hay stars as Will Fitch, a former barrister brought up on charges of fraud, who easily gets himself acquitted with a flurry of wheezy old jokes, then invites the flummoxed Crown Prosecutor, fittingly named Claude Babbington, back to his digs for a drink.
But there they are confronted by a recently released felon gone mad (a delightfully miscast Mervyn Johns, whom you may remember as Bob Cratchit to Alastair Sim’s Scrooge.) who has sworn to kill everyone who had a hand in sending him up, and just wants to give Hay a heads-up you know, because he’s last on the list.
Duly alarmed, Fitch and Babbington set about trying to thwart the madman by getting to his prospective victims first, following clues he has thoughtfully provided them. All they manage, though, is to arrive late or at the wrong places and get themselves suspected and ultimately hunted by Scotland Yard.
It’s a tenuous concept for a comedy, but it gets more than its share of laughs, mostly because Babbington, Fitch’s partner in not-solving crimes is played by veteran comic actor Claude Hulbert.
Hulbert specialized in playing the Silly Ass, and even essayed a turn as Algy Longworth in Bulldog Jack (aka: Alias Bulldog Drummond). Everyone involved had the wisdom to give him free rein here, and he’s simply and completely hilarious, even when the jokes are not. Indeed, he gets a tour de force dance number that he handles with amazing gracefulness (sorry) and split-second timing.
Friend ultimately devolves into a farcical set-to inside an explosive-laden Big Ben, but by that time I had surrendered to Hulbert’s charm and found myself enjoying this nonsense in spite of myself. You might, too.

April 24th, 2022 at 7:28 pm
Dan,
Great review. Re Hulburt, Jack, a popular song and dance leading man, not Claude starred in BULLDOG JACK (original idea by Jack with a screenplay by J.O.C. Orton, Sydney Gilliat, and Gerard Fairlie) in the lead role as a cricketeer enlisted to play Drummond (Athol FLeming) who has been laid up in the Hospital by a trap sprung by the diabolical Professor Morel (Ralph Richardson). Claude Alister, not Hulburt, plays Algy in that one and Fay Wray the girl.
Claude Hulburt would have been a great Algy though.
The battle in the British Museum and the final chase on the British Underground are considered classic slapstick comedy action sequences.
Jack and Claude look remarkably alike, but Jack was a much bigger star, he and Jack Buchanan the British versions of Fred Astaire as song and dance men though Hulburt’s films often incorporate action sequences and a crime plot of some sort.
Ironically many of British musicals of the Thirties and Forties starring Hulburt, Buchanan, Arthur Askey, and George Formby had crime or spy story elements mixed with slapstick comedy rather than the strict romantic elements in American musicals, closer to Danny Kaye’s films than the usual musical comedy.
April 24th, 2022 at 7:29 pm
I agree on this one, and like you I have to wonder just exactly what the appeal of Will Hay was in many films.
April 24th, 2022 at 8:14 pm
Dan, my apologies, you were right, that is Claude Hulburt with Jack, the titles on the copy of Bulldog Jack I have list him as Claude Alister for some reason.
There is a strong family resemblance with Jack anyway.
April 24th, 2022 at 9:51 pm
I like Will Hay. The sequence in The Goose Steps Out where he teaches Nazi students about England is hilarious. When he gets them to salute Hitler with an English gesture, I nearly fell off my chair, laughing. But yes, best in small doses. I’ve not seen a movie of his which worked for me at full-length.
April 25th, 2022 at 3:56 am
This may be a trans-Atlantic affair and I’m not going to go into details but if I was asked who my favourite film star was I would always reply “Will Hay”. I have almost all his films on DVD and have enjoyed them all more than once.
April 25th, 2022 at 7:20 am
Always room for other opinions here.
April 25th, 2022 at 8:52 am
FYI:
The British brothers/comedians referenced above are Claude and Jack HULBERT.
Your very own header IDs Claude as such.
Additionally, any and all available reference works on British comedy and cinema use the correct spelling; thus, if you look the brothers up, the extra ‘r’ will just get you mixed up.
(Just as easily as you can get the star British comic Will HAY confused with the infamous US movie censor Will HAYS, if you aren’t careful.)
It always pays to be sure.
April 25th, 2022 at 9:04 am
You can blame me, Mike. I usually correct misspellings, even in the comments, but I completely missed the extra ‘r’ this time around in David’s.
I hope it’s OK for me to go ahead and get them fixed, even so belatedly as now.
Hulbert, not Hurlbert.