One Wild Oat

This film should have been funny, but Stanley Holloway overacts and shouts his way into the very depths of unfunniness. The film is an abysmal failure. The director Charles Saunders entirely failed to keep Holloway under control, so the result was disastrous. The film was so bad that I did not watch all of it, so I missed Audrey Hepburn, aged 21, as a hotel receptionist. (Or did I simply not spot her?) It was only her second appearance on screen, and Hepburn fans will doubtless want to see this for that reason, if they can bear it. Irene Handl also appears, and despite her being such a favourite, it is not enough to make one sit through this film. Robertson Hare is not particularly impressive, but instead is tedious and irritating. Stanley Holloway and Audrey Hepburn later appeared together in MY FAIR LADY. Let's hope he was funnier in real life than he is in this film. When will directors ever learn that over-the-top performers need to be tightly controlled? The title of this film is certainly amusing, which is why I got the DVD. Instead of lots of oats, there is only one oat. But upon reflection I have realized that no one under 30 appears to be familiar with the expression 'sowing one's wild oats' anymore, or has the slightest comprehension of what it could mean. After all, they have all grown up smothered in wild oats, and some of them have even sowed their first by the age of ten. It's called social decadence.