No Monkey Business

This film was shown last night at the BFI Southbank as part of the "Projecting The Artchives" series.The curator who introduced it mentioned that it had been brought out from the far corners of the archive and that it deserved a viewing.He made the point that this film was the equivalent of the screwball comedy in the US,a season of which is currently running.Alas his preamble whetted our appetites for what was unfortunately a damp squib.the highlight as mentioned in the other review,a fall down a long staircase by Richard Hearne.Hearne ,later to be known as "Mr pastry" was the highlight of this mediocre farce.Unfortunately all this film did was highlight the sheer class of Hollywood films in comparison.After all "My Man Godfrey,"You Cant Take It With You","Theodora Goes Wild" are still regarded as classics of the genre.alas this film will go back into limbo unremembered by any other than last nights audience.Some good British comedies were made in the 1930s,alas this is not one of them.

Straight man Gene Gerrard and comic sidekick Richard Hearne (later famous as TV's Mr Pastry) try to pass off Hearne as a chimpanzee. Despite the fact that he's in a really unconvincing monkey suit, everyone's convinced. This silly plot seems like a hangover from the silent days and is crude compared to the comedy coming out of Hollywood at the same time. But it's slickly directed by Marcel Varnel, who went on to work with many of the greatest British comedians of the 30s and 40s, and the whole cast knows what they're doing. It's just that the business is impossible to laugh at today. Renee Houston is feisty as the second female lead and Claude Dampier does his standard goofy act. Stand-out performer, however, is Hearne, who at one point takes a backward tumble down a flight of stairs. You won't find many comedians today willing to do that.