I've spent the past few weeks rereading Dorothy Sayers' Peter Wimsey mysteries and noted someone in them saying he looked like Ralph Lynn -- I pictured him as Claude Hulbert myself. So when Mr. Lynn showed up, I took an opportunity to look at him in the movie version of this farce.
Mr. Lynn is a very unsuccessful barrister, without a penny to his name, living in an expensive flat with a full staff. On the other hand, he has a trust that he will come into on his fortieth birthday, if he is unmarried, and his uncle, Morton Selten, is on his way back from India to sign the papers. On the other hand, he has a wife in the very pretty Judy Gunn, the servants have walked out because they haven't been paid, the gas has been turned off..... oh, let it stand that the usual complications ensue.
This is farce, after all, and Mr. Lynn was one of the Aldwych farceurs, as a result, even though the goings-on may seem pretty stupid to a modern audience, no one can take exception with the way the cast handles the various silly situations, with speed, grace and the bright seriousness that such goings-on require to make them funny. The butt of the jokes are the characters who make them, and if anyone objects to people who are being fools getting their own come-uppances, they had better stick to knock-knock jokes.
