Category: Films

The 1930s moving into the 1940s was a golden time for film production. Many of the films we still love came from that era.

“Gone With The Wind” was 1939. So was “The Wizard of Oz”.

A film with amazing use of colour and a symphonic score is “The Adventures of Robin Hood”.

Hitchcock was still a great director at this time. Fritz Lang made “M” with Peter Lorre (1931).

We haven’t mentioned the Marx Brothers, Warner’s gangster movies, the ‘monster’ movies from Universal, such as “Frankenstein”. Or Andy Hardy. Even Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937).

If I was going to pick out just one film that has not yet been mentioned as a must see, it’s “Goodbye, Mr Chips” (1939), if only for the performance of Robert Donat:

One of my favourite films of the 1930s is the black and white feature “Oh, Mr Porter!”, starring Will Hay.

Hay was a very interesting chap, hugely clever, a serious astronomer (there is an asteroid named after him) and the person who gave Amy Johnson flying lessons.

He made a number of very funny films where he played a bumbling, slightly corrupt official who gets into trouble. In this film he is a station master, he is often a teacher or policeman. In his best films, he is accompanied by Graham Moffatt and Moore Marriott (centre).

Marriott was a seriously good straight actor. He could take out his teeth, insert a false plate with a single tooth and it was so funny.

The plot is simple and eerily familiar: Hay takes over as station master at a forgotten station in Ireland, near the border. He tries to make something of the station, offering day trips, but gets involved with smugglers.

The film ends with a famous windmill scene, followed by a train chase.

It may seem a big corny these days, but some of the one liners, especially “Where’s your clock?” are hilarious.

“Ask A Policeman” is also worth a watch.