Feather Your Nest

For one reason and another this one and He Snoops To Conquer from 1944 are the 2 Formby films most difficult to come by, this was his 4th for ATP at Ealing and paradoxically the one with perhaps his most famous song in.

Willie and Mary work at the local record factory, the Monarch Gramophone Co. and are in the process of buying a house and getting married. Much to her pub landlady Ma's opposition – "What you can see in that gump beats me". He needs to get a 5/- a week rise to fulfil their dreams – would the same still held true today for the rest of us! A big crooner without even a contract records Leaning On A Lampost for the Company but George drops and shatters the wax master galvanising him and Mary to cover it up by recording it themselves late one night and hoping that no one will notice the substitution… George regressed back to Willie for the last time in here, from now on George was always George, and Polly Ward playing his girlfriend was nicely exuberant and even came back for a second helping the next year in It's In The Air. Familiar British stock actors played everyone else in a cartoon-like fashion. Songs: Feather Your Nest (in the unfinished bedroom), cutting the famous Leaning On A Lampost (my favourite bit, in the studio - wonder if there really was a record catalogue number CA895?) and Happy As A Sandboy (at the house warming party built on castles of sand).

There are many more trials and tribulations to come – the Turkish bath being one – but if you think this film will end in blank despondency you don't know your Formby! Overall it's another enjoyable piece of nonsense this time with a simple social commentary thrown in.

George Formby works at a record company where he drops whatever he's holding when a whistle goes off. He and Polly Ward want to get married and have already bought a house and furnished it on credit. At work, ewly signed Gilbert Russell is recording "Leaning on a Lamp Post". When George is taking the soe master to the production facilities, a whistle goes off and he drops the master, shattering it. Eventually, he records a new master on his own, hoping that it will be laid to a bad recording, and redone.

There are a number of standard comedy set pieces, and George gets to ride a motor cycle. Clearly ATP -- which would become Ealing -- knew they had a star in the making, and were repeating elements from his earlier vehicles. He has good chemistry with Miss Ward; despite being a song-and-dance girl herself, she doesn't get any songs, but falls into the ingenue role, albeit one with some push to keep George moving.

George sings three songs, including "Leaning on a Lamp Post"; it would become his signature tune. Like George's earlier vehicles, this one turns out nice again.

I cannot understand that this ,alone,of George Formbys films is unavailable and has not been shown on TV.It only gets a showing at the NFT now and again.The fact that it has not reached 5 votes yet speaks volume..This is one of the films that Formby made for Ealing Studios.It is also in my view one of his best because it has a reasonably entertaining story.It starts with George working in a record factory.A crooner sings "Leaning On A Lampost" Crosby style at a recording session.The recording is made on a wax disc which George manages to break.He secretly makes a replacement in his inimitable style.So the comedy arises from the fact that the studio bosses do not know that the change has been made. this film also has a satirical swipe at the jerrybuilding of houses in the 1930s suburban housebuilding boom in London.It is an entertaining film but one which few people have seen for many years. This is now available on DVD as part of the Ealing Rareities series

When Willie (George Formby), a clumsy gramaphone recording technician breaks the wax acetate of a diva recording star Rex Randall (played by BBC Dance Orchestra singer Val Rosing), he breaks into the studio with the help of his fiancee Mary (Polly Ward) to re-record the song 'Leaning on a Lamp-post', expected to be a hit for Randall. Willie is sacked from his job and throws his upcoming marriage to Mary in the air, especially as they have put a deposit down on a new house.

Of course, as in the film, 'Leaning on a Lamp-post' became one of Formby's biggest hits, even though it was written by Noel Gay rather than Formby's usual songwriters Harry Parr-Davis, Fred E. Cliffe or Harry Gifford, a song with fewer of the double-entendres of some of his better other songs. Although it plays on Formby's clumsy goofy character, it is a little less farcical than some of his later films for producer Basil Dean and ATP, with the situations actually having tension and comedy, as well as an interesting sub-plot on home ownership and Higher Purchase. Ward also makes for an attractive co-star.