Will Hay is an acquired taste — one that the American public never acquired. I’m not even clear on how much of an attempt was made to sell him in the U.S. Quite apart from the fact that British films were generally shunned in the States during his nine years of movies, there’s the fact that Hay’s screen persona was deliberately unsympathetic. The closest comparison to him would be W.C. Fields, but on quite a few occasions — and in some of his best movies — Fields was sympathetic. Not so Will Hay. He’s dishonest, lazy, and prickly. He’s completely self-serving and though prone to ending up the “hero” in his movies, it has nothing to do with helping anyone other than Hay. Considering he came into prominence at the same time MGM decided that the Marx Brothers would have more appeal if their comedy was in the service of helping young lovers, Hay would be a hard sell at best.
Hay is one of those people that it used to be easier to read about than to see. I first read about Hay in the 1960s. (Quite a few of the best books on movies at that time came from Great Britain.) I first saw him in the 1980s when the USA Network showed Good Morning, Boys (1937) and Convict 99 (1938). I was unable to any more until I was in London in 1990 and a friend had a copy of his most famous film, Oh, Mr. Porter! (1937). One day on that same trip, my wife and I were having lunch with Ken Russell and I mentioned having seen Oh, Mr. Porter!. Ken asked if I’d seen My Learned Friend and when I said I hadn’t, he proceeded to describe the movie in great detail. At one point, he even did an impression of Will Hay doing an impression of a barking dog. Well, I thought this was something I needed to see. It turned out it would be another 15 years or so before that happened. The advent of region free DVD players and the release of most of Hay’s movies in the UK solved the problem at long last. Now, we can see Will Hay give his impression of a barking dog ourselves — as well as commit all manner of transparent perfidy, while thwarting a homicidal maniac.
The Asheville Film Society will screen My Learned Friend Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 8 p.m. in Theater Six at The Carolina Asheville, hosted by Xpress movie critic Ken Hanke.
Just Brilliant