One Wild Oat

This is a not-so-great attempt to revive the Aldwych farces of the thirties in a post-war setting on the cheap. There is an interesting cast, but not on top form. Robertson Hare is excellent as a comedy foil, but here carries too much of the weight of the action, and his pompous barking monotone, so splendid when deployed strategically, becomes irritating long before the end. Stanley Holloway's roguish charm is also out of kilter, with too much rogue and not enough charm. He is excellent in his drag scene, though.

The romantic leads are charisma-free, so that we don't really care whether they get married or not, and hardly notice when they disappear for half the film. More might have been made of Mrs Gilbey's music hall past, while the plot might have benefited from more decisiveness about Mrs Proudfoot's character - is she a snob, or basically good-hearted? The minor parts are more pleasing, with a rare film outing for Sam Costa, his voice so familiar from 'Much Binding in the Marsh', an excellent early cameo from Irene Handl, and a bit part for Audrey Hepburn, who ironically has a telephone conversation with Holloway, who would play her father in 'My Fair Lady'. There are a couple of funny flashbacks to Proudfoot's gay 20s cycling and dancing with a flapper, and more could have been made of these too.

But gosh, the film is slow. The funny gags are too few and far between, and all too often a promising situation goes nowhere. A misfire.