Me and Marlborough

Set during the War of the Spanish Succession, this film is the story of newlyweds Kit Ross and Dick Welch, who are married at the beginning of the film. Immediately after the ceremony, Dick is forced to join the Queen's regiment of the army to help fight the French. Soon after Dick is whisked away, Kit follows him - posing as a young male soldier. Predictably, she turns out to be much more competent and intelligent than her male peers and often saves the day by her quick thinking. She eventually ends up in the company of the Duke of Marlborough himself, commander of the English forces, and finds favour with him because of her ingenuity - but all she wants is to be reunited with her husband Dick.

This is a silly film throughout - silly story, silly performances and silly situations. Really there's not much of a story until the last half an hour. I consider it a historical version of the screwball comedy, mainly because either the humour has dated or it was never funny in the first place. A few scenes are mildly amusing but most of the humour just doesn't work. I found Cicely Courtneidge quite irritating as the prototype-feminist heroine of the film. Perhaps liking the main character is the key to liking this film - I found her boisterous and somewhat absurd nature unappealing and so this tainted the film for me. Those who find the character funny might well find the rest of the film funny too. Tom Walls is good as the Duke of Marlborough but this film is hardly his finest hour - he is at his best when he is either stealing priceless diamonds or chasing diamond thieves.

A pretty average to boring comedy overall, with some nice bits but nothing to make it worthy of recommendation.