Better than you might expect from the British film industry at the height of the country's distress in 1941.
It's a diverting and mostly comic mystery with a clotted plot. A cottage in rural Scotland is owned by the local aristocrat, Mrs. Barrington. She's a youngish woman with good intentions but with the insight of one of those vines whose leaves curl when you touch them.
"Pay no attention to the fact that you're such a nuisance," she tells one resident of the cottage. And, "I want you to do anything here you like except don't touch anything." And when Sims introduces himself, saying, "I'm Dimble," she puts a hand on his arm and replies, "Oh, I'm so sorry."
This "cottage", by the way, is what most of us would call "a pretty big house." That's how it can be converted into a war time facility -- a hostel for young evacuees from London, a local hospital, a site for fund-raising bazaar, the laboratory of a bomb sight inventor.
It appears that the inventor's secrets are somehow being conveyed to the Nazis. There are twists and turns in the plot, which I won't describe, except to say that there is one German agent and one double agent -- I think that's the term -- among the inhabitants.
The film gets kinetic towards the end, with fist fights and shootings. It sheds its comic tone and turns into a thriller. That doesn't prevent one character from rolling a giant millstone over two armed enemies and commenting, "Two birds with one stone."
Not to be taken seriously, and sometimes positively amusing.
It's a diverting and mostly comic mystery with a clotted plot. A cottage in rural Scotland is owned by the local aristocrat, Mrs. Barrington. She's a youngish woman with good intentions but with the insight of one of those vines whose leaves curl when you touch them.
"Pay no attention to the fact that you're such a nuisance," she tells one resident of the cottage. And, "I want you to do anything here you like except don't touch anything." And when Sims introduces himself, saying, "I'm Dimble," she puts a hand on his arm and replies, "Oh, I'm so sorry."
This "cottage", by the way, is what most of us would call "a pretty big house." That's how it can be converted into a war time facility -- a hostel for young evacuees from London, a local hospital, a site for fund-raising bazaar, the laboratory of a bomb sight inventor.
It appears that the inventor's secrets are somehow being conveyed to the Nazis. There are twists and turns in the plot, which I won't describe, except to say that there is one German agent and one double agent -- I think that's the term -- among the inhabitants.
The film gets kinetic towards the end, with fist fights and shootings. It sheds its comic tone and turns into a thriller. That doesn't prevent one character from rolling a giant millstone over two armed enemies and commenting, "Two birds with one stone."
Not to be taken seriously, and sometimes positively amusing.