Jack's the Boy (1932)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Walter Forde

Writers:

Douglas Furber (story)
Sidney Gilliat (script contributor)

Release Date:

June 1932 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy

Cast

Jack Hulbert	...	Jack Brown
Cicely Courtneidge	...	Mrs. Bobday
Winifred Shotter	...	Ivy
Francis Lister	...	Jules Martin
Peter Gawthorne	...	Mr. Brown
Ben Field	...	Mr. Bobday
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Charles Farrell	...	Martin
Dickie Valentine

Also Known As:

Night and Day (USA)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Gainsborough Studios, Shepherd's Bush, London, England, UK

Company:

Gainsborough Pictures

Creaky fun

Chisel-chinned Jack Hulbert starred in a number of comedy adventures, in which he invariably played the same kind of unlikely, gangling hero. This is one of those in which his real-life wife, Cicely Courtneidge co-starred, but although Jack made an odd-looking leading man, Cicely would have made an even odder-looking heroine, so she played up the comedy, while a younger actress was wheeled in for Jack to win. This is 1932, and it is British, and it is creaky, but it's entertaining for all that. I saw it more than ten years ago, and I have to say that one scene remains burned in my memory. Jack and Cicely have to search a room, and for some reason, they turn the procedure into an eccentric dance. I played this part of the tape to some friends of mine who were unfamiliar with these actors, and this realm of films, and it got a huge laugh. I was pleased to see, some years later, that that sequence was on a video loop, and was being played all day long at the Museum Of the Moving Image in London. The film is itself a museum piece, because it's more curious than funny most of the time, especially as the medium of film doesn't really seem to have captured the essence of whatever made Cicely Courtneidge such a national treasure, although she's jolly enough. I remember the photography being rather good, and although it creaks, some of the timing is spot on. This film is eccentric fun, and while there is a sense of theatrical performers being constrained by the cameras, it's ultimately uplifting, and worth keeping an eye out for, even if just for that room-searching scene.