My Learned Friend

Movie Information

In Brief: Many consider My Learned Friend (1943) to be British comedian (and astronomer and airplane pilot) Will Hay's best film. I'm not sure I can go that far. His obvious failing health (it was his last movie, though he lived for several more years) is a bit of downer, and the absence his earlier co-stars, Moore Marriott and Graham Moffat, hurts his his later films. But it is a terrific showcase for Hay as a barrister of very little competence and an abundance of dishonesty. The plot has to do with one of his less-grateful (and insane) clients (Mervyn Johns, best known as Bob Cratchit in Alastair Sim's 1951 version of  Christmas Carol) plotting his revenge on all those responsible for his conviction. Naturally, Hay is on that list — as the final victim. Claude Hulbert, as a fellow barrister who is possibly even less competent than our hero, makes a good co-star. The film is surprisingly close to black comedy on several occasions and takes a turn toward thrill comedy at the end in its justly famous climax on the face of Big Ben. There's also a great bit for Ernest Thesiger (Dr. Pretorius from 1935's Bride of Frankenstein) as an inmate at an asylum.
Score:

Genre: Comedy
Director: Will Hay, Basil Dearden
Starring: Will Hay, Claude Hulbert, Mervyn Johns, Laurence Hanray, Ernest Thesiger
Rated: NR

 

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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.

 

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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.

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About Ken Hanke
Head film critic for Mountain Xpress from December 2000 until his death in June 2016. Author of books "Ken Russell's Films," "Charlie Chan at the Movies," "A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series," "Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker."

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