Just William

Name: Just William
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1940-07-20
Duration: 1 h 12 min
Rating: 6.1
Cast: Richard Lupino, Fred Emney, Basil Radford

19401940
1h 12min

6.1/10

Roddy McDowall, Richard Lupino, Norman Robinson, and Peter Miles in Just William (1940)

Comedy

William Brown has a good-intentioned yet naughty nature that challenges his family's patience. He and his friends live various adventures weedening a garden, pursuing a secret agent, looking... Read allWilliam Brown has a good-intentioned yet naughty nature that challenges his family's patience. He and his friends live various adventures weedening a garden, pursuing a secret agent, looking for a baby sister and deactivating a bomb.William Brown has a good-intentioned yet naughty nature that challenges his family's patience. He and his friends live various adventures weedening a garden, pursuing a secret agent, looking for a baby sister and deactivating a bomb.

6.1/10

Director
- Graham Cutts
Writers
- Richmal Crompton(novel)
- Graham Cutts(screenplay)
- Doreen Montgomery(screenplay)
Stars

Top credits

See production, box office & company info

3User reviews

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William Brown has a good-intentioned yet naughty nature that continuously challenges his family's patience. He and his friends make big plans at their shed club and so get involved in various adventures : pursuing a secret agent, weedening a rich woman's garden in the hope of getting some money for candy, helping secret service detectives, looking for an exchanged baby sister and deactivating a dangerous bomb hidden in a suitcase. That, of course, from their point of view. Not forgetting in the meantime to campaign for William's father -or against him?. Punishment is always near, but after all he didn't mean any harm. Well, you know, it's - just William. —BSK

based on novel

Genre
- Comedy
Parents guide
- Add content advisory

Connections
Featured in Elstree Story (1952)

Top review

6/10

Looking Backwards Fondly on a Bygone Era

I had the pleasure of meeting Richard Lupino at several sessions of New York's Silent Clowns showings of short comedies of his uncle Lupino Lane and father, George Lupino. I wouldn't have recognized him as the star of this movie, because he didn't wear a schoolboy cap, striped scarf and short pants, and was more than sixty years older than the 10-year old boy in the movie, who kindly but thoughtlessly gets into all sorts of mischief in a small English village, abetted by pals, including Roddy MacDowall. In a world populated by pompous and stupid adults, including Basil Radford and Amy Veness, it's a mild and amusing film version of Richmal Crompton's beloved series of stories.

It's noteworthy as the last feature directed by Graham Cutts. During the late silent period, he was considered one of the leading British directors, but he seems to have alienated too many people while on top -- including Alfred Hitchcock -- so that when he began to slide, there wasn't much support for him in the British studios' ranks.

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