Self-confessed waster and non-literary man Gulliver Sheils hatches a plan to escape glum 40's Ireland for the South Seas...
This beautiful little Ealing comedy is rarely seen, probably because it has no big names and is an Ealing experiment in Irish humour rather than their usual business of English. Robert Beatty, fresh from his turn as an IRA man in Odd Man Out, makes a very convincing loafer, all excuses permanently in hand - 'I'm not a literary man, at all.' The rarely seen Moira Lister shines as his middle class love interest, much more rooted to the real world and trying to make Beatty respectable enough for marriage. And there's a small turn by Wilfred Brambell looking very much like Albert Steptoe fifteen years before Albert Steptoe.
The ending is very much an English solution to an Irish problem. If only Home Rule assured us all a wage and girl...
I also wonder if Brendan Behan saw this film, through a beer glass in the late 40's in some Dublin fleapit, and decided to adopt its style. It certainly anticipates much of his take on Irish character and humour.