THE PRIVATE SECRETARY

UK, 1935, 70 minutes, Black-and-white.

Edward Everett Horton, Barry MacKay, Judy Gunn, Oscar Asche, Sydney Fairbrother, Michael Shepley, Alistair Sim, Aubey Dexter.

Directed by Henry Edwards.

A curiosity item from Britain in the 1930s. The film was based on a story by Charles Hawtrey (not the Carry on actor).

The IMDb gives a very neat overview of the plot, and the choice of words to describe the central character: A timid and dim-witted clergyman is duped into helping a playboy avoid his creditors, inherit his uncle's fortune and get the girl. Timid and dim-witted seems an understatement!

The film shows the wealthy classes in London, playboys and nightclubs, drinking, smashing glasses for the fun of it, arriving home in the morning, loyal servants looking after them – but severe creditors also early on the doorstep.

But the film opens in India, showing a very superior British colonialist in his treatment of the locals – which he then shows to everybody when he returns to England. His played by Australian actor, dramatist, Oscar Asche.

There is a situation where the central playboy’s best friend’s uncle has a private secretary, a clergyman from the counties, coming to the country estate. He turns up at the playboy’s house, encounters the imperious uncle who mistakes him for his nephew. Consequently, all kinds of mixups, the clergyman travelling by bus in London, comic misapprehensions, his turning up at the country estate with a playboy his impersonating the private secretary, but attracted by his employer’s daughter. Obvious where this is going.

However, it is all the shenanigans on the way that are important, the daughter discovering the impersonation but carrying on as if not, creditors coming to the country and getting drunk, the elderly lady of the house caught up in belief in mediums and the afterlife. And, surprisingly, a young Alistair Sim, looking and acting very much like his films during the 1950s, portrays a bogus medium.

But, the star of the piece is American Edward Everett Horton, playing the butler in so many films, variations on timid variations on dimwitted. He is a master of this kind of character on screen.

An example of farcical comedy enjoyed in the mid 1930s.