Frederick Leister is a bookkeeper for a bookmaker. He is a stuffy but kindly paterfamilias, who tut-tuts at son Richard Attenborough reading at the breakfast table, but slips him five pounds. He quite approves of daughter Anne Crawford's engagement to David Farrar; he and wife Mary Draper even buy some land to build them a house.
In short, he's a fine fellow. So when his employer decides to open a window for hundred-pound bets at the race track, he's to man it. There's no business, it's just a publicity stunt, but unsavory sorts, with names like "Chick" and "John D. Humphries" see this as an opportunity. Soon, Leister is called into the office, told he has to make up the difference, and finds his middle-class existence collapsing.
This is one of the B movies Warner Brothers produced at the Teddington Studio. A lot of them were missing, in part because the head of the BFI at the time -- whose name I will not mention, may it be forgotten forever! -- turned down the offer of prints because they weren't important enough. Soon enough a buzz bomb got them, and this one vanished for 70 years, until a 16mm. print with a blurry soundtrack showed up.
It was a tough watch because of that, but a rewarding one, because director Brian Desmond Hurst makes it all look improvised in character. Leister never harrumphs, but he seems supremely natural in his performance. A very nice little movie.
