Convict 99

Whilst the changes Will Hay makes to the prison aren't quite as pink and fluffy as what Paddington achieves in PADDINGTON 2, you can't help drawing comparisons. Both films are warm, silly, funny and uniquely English.

Like the Carry On films, all Will Hay's Gainsborough films including CONVICT 99 essentially have the same plot and characters as all the others. It was however such a brilliant plot with such brilliant familiar characters that they could keep remaking the same picture over and over again and they'd still feel fresh. This one has different writing team to usual and they have created a story that's slightly more sophisticated (not a word often found in a Will Hay review!) from his other pictures.

Obviously it's not as good as OH MR PORTER because that's OH MR PORTER but being from Mr Hay's golden period, this is still one of the best comedies of the 1930s. ASK A POLICEMEN and WINDBAG THE SAILOR are possibly closest in style to PORTER but this very close.

Given the befit of hindsight one of many ironic lines in this film is that "Even in Russia you get a fair trial!"

Probably the slickest of Will Hay's Gainsborough period, combining elements that subsequently served Peter Sellers well in 'Two-Way Stretch' and 'The Wrong Arm of the Law', peddling the reassuring notion that the criminal fraternity were capable of far greater resource than the actual upholders of law and order.

Despite the presence of Moore Marriott - who as Jerry the Mole makes 'stir crazy' a positive understatement - and Graham Moffatt (cutting quite a dash as a prison officer), director Marcel Varnel had at his disposal a much larger cast than previously, including such later Ealing luminaries as Basil Radford (seen too briefly, alas), with Google Withers hard as nails as a fake Russian countess who pays Hays the backhanded compliment of describing him as "as big a liar as I am!", and a rare cameo appearance by stout xylophonist Teddy Brown as a denizen of the underworld answering to the name 'Slim' Charlie.

Although the credits read "Will Hay as Convict 99" that honour actually belongs to Wilfred Walter who plays the definitive scowling malcontent Max Slessor seen at one point wielding a mean blackjack.

When it turns out that "Twist" (Will Hay) is no good as an headmaster he is turfed out and looking for a new job! An administrative mix up sees him appointed the governor a prison, and after another which sees him temporarily behind the bars, he tries to ingratiate himself with the prisoners and, predictably, they run rings round him as he is soon well out of his depth. Will Hay had good comedy timing and together with a decent cast of regulars manages to raise a laugh or two, but the film is way too long and the joke doesn't really sustain it for ninety minutes. That said, though, it is still quite watchable, if only to remind us was made us laugh in the simpler, less cynical days before the second world war.

Convict 99 is directed by Marcel Varnel and collectively written by Jack Davis Jr, Marriott Edgar, Val Guest, Ralph Smart and Cyril Campion. It stars Will Hay, Moore Marriott, Graham Moffatt, Googie Withers, Peter Gawthorne, Basil Radford and Dennis Wyndham.

Dismissed from his position as headmaster at St. Michael's School, Dr. Benjamin Twist (Hay) applies for a job at another school. Inadvertently going into the wrong interview room, Twist finds himself offered the job because the interviewers think he is a John Benjamin, a tough Australian who has applied for the Warder's job at Blakedown Prison in Devon! Twist in charge of a prison? One that houses some of the toughest criminals in Britain! Oh no...

After the monster success of Oh, Mr. Porter! a few months previously, it was always going to be hard for Will Hay's next film to compete. And so it proved. While Convict 99 falls some way below the standard set by "Porter", some of the harsh reviews back on the film's release were misjudged. The prison setting seemed to bother many; more so the picture of prison life painted, with a few critics bizarrely thinking it was a satire on prison reform!

Convict 99 is a standard Will Hay/Gainsborough Pictures romp, it milks the mistaken identity theme for all its worth and slots in a few very funny set-pieces along the way. Re: Twist breaking rocks and losing his sledgehammer, the betting shenanigans and the break out of prison and break into the bank. The famed trio of Hay, Marriott and Moffatt don't get much time to interact together, which is disappointing, in fact Moffatt is under used, but Marriott's Jerry the Mole is a wonderful character and the wise old Marriott perks things up when the film begins to sag. Good character actors Gawthorne, Radford and Wyndham ensure the material doesn't fall flat, while Withers holds her end up well in a male dominated screenplay. 7/10

...but yet SO ridiculous that it draws you in and you have to stay watching to see what happens.

Benjamin Twist was a school master, and he's at this agency wanting a job in a school for reformed boys. But a general misunderstanding/mistaken identity gets him instead a different job, that of a prison governor! You see the man they wanted for the job is called Mr. Benjamin, as in *last* name Benjamin. So when everyone starts calling Mr. Twist 'Benjamin' (which is his first name), he just calls them all by their first names back and they all think he's such a riot. He does eventually realise their mistake, but at the same time finds out that the job pays £2000 a year; where the job he was actually after only pays £75. Well, being a prison warden isn't THAT much different from being schoolmaster to difficult boys, is it...