Will Hay
William Potts / Muller
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Comedy
War
Schoolteacher William Potts is the double of a captured German spy, so he is sent to Germany by British Intelligence to obtain the plans of a new secret weapon, causing chaos in a Hitler Youth school in the process.
Top Billed Cast
| Release Date | 1942-08-01 |
|---|---|
| Runtime | 1h 19m |
| Directors | Will Hay, Basil Dearden, Ernest Palmer |
| Producer | Michael Balcon |
| Writers | Angus MacPhail, Reg Groves, Bernard Miles, John Dighton |
Will Hay delivers quite well in this wartime pick-me-up of a film. He is discovered to be the spitting image for a Nazi general who happens to be in charge of a prestigious Hitler Youth establishment. As you'd expect, his character "Potts" is the least like a general you can imagine, but soon he has been dispatched as a sort of doppelgänger and is causing the predictable havoc amongst the aspirational young men of the great Arian race. Hay always had solid entertainment skills, good comedy timing and a very expressive face - he easily raises a few chuckles here. Charles Hawtrey is also quite good fun as "Max" and there's even some Peter Ustinov faffing about as "Krauss" in this amiable farce that had a pretty clear propagandist purpose which I suspect would have worked well with audiences in Britain at the time. It's maybe a little long, but it does what it set out to do and as an example of the star's ability to chivvy up the viewers, it's a fair effort.
— CinemaSerf