Benjamin Twist (Will Hay) is a different kind of schoolteacher, he teaches the pupils very little of worth. That is except gambling and bluffing a way thru life. When grumpy Colonel Willoughby-Gore visits the class, he is mortified to find the boys have learnt next to nothing of value in Twist's class. Seeking to get Twist fired, Gore calls on the school board to fire him. But wanting to be fair, the board suggest that Twist and eight of is class enter the inter-school examinations in London. Where, if they make the grade, Twist will save his job. Oh dear! Not only is his job in the hands of a bunch of gambling, smoking dunces, but trouble comes in the form of Arty Jones, an escaped convict and father to one of Twist's boys. There's a robbery in the pipeline, and Twist and his class are going to be right in the middle of it.
To all intents and purposes, Good Morning Boys is structurally a remake of Will Hay's frothy entertainer, Boys Will Be Boys from 1935. Much like the 35 film, this film sees Hay as a bumbling teacher surrounded by roguish boys and with shifty crooks on the horizon. There's still an affluent lady who's on Twist's side, a gruff Colonel who's out to get Twist and a crooked father of one of the boys after a priceless item. However, in spite of the obvious similarities (there's more, such as the "Watt is a unit of electricity" replacing the "how high is a Chinaman"? skit), the quality of writing and direction is considerably better.
This was the first of eight films that Marcel Varnel directed Hay in, of which it's fair to say contain half a dozen of them that are Hay's best pictures. Correctly suggesting that both men were comfortable working with each other. The other first of note is that this was the film that saw Hay bring Dr Benjamin Twist to the screen, he would reprise the character twice more in Convict 99 (1938) and Hey! Hey! USA (also 1938). Here the plot contains plenty of zip to it as teacher and boys end up in Paris, where the Louvre, and a certain Mona Lisa painting, provide scope for plenty of laughs. Of which Hay and his colleagues are only too happy to deliver the goods. Prior to this we have indulged in cheeky cheating, search party fun patrol and a bookies blackboard skit that's purely joyous in its writing. But it's with the Paris set finale that it hits its mark, acrobats and punch ups are merely the start of the fun on its way.
Joining Hay on the cast list is the integral to his career, Graham Moffatt as Albert Brown {a character Moffatt played 7 times with Hay}. With notable performances also coming from Martita Hunt, Peter Gawthorne, Fewlass Llewellyn, Mark Daly, Lilli Palmer (who sings the delightful "Baby, Whatcha Gonna Do Tonight?") and look out for a young Charles Hawtrey as a posh class swot. It may be missing the considerable comic excellence of Hay's other important career sidekick, Moore Marriott, but it's still one of the better Hay movies to forever enjoy and savour. 8/10
