Dir: Monty Banks | George Formby, Florence Desmond, Alistair Sim, Gus McNaughton | Uk Comedy 82’
George Formby’s status at Ealing had reached the stage where the company was prepared to invest in something more substantial to provide him with a showcase, even it rather squanders the satire of Ilf & Petrov’s Russian original novel.
As the hero Formby shows such a limited grasp of maths you want to wring his neck as he stupidly shrinks his prospective inheritance like a meter on a taxi; and his adventures are inclined to be more harrowing than funny – as in a truly apocalyptic scene which begins with him being attacked by a duck.
Monty Banks’ direction is usually very perfunctory, but this has be the only film in you get to see Formby punch Alistair Sim in the face on two separate occasions, while the film elsewhere displays a bracing cynicism in it’s depiction of the effect on people of the prospect of easy money. @RichardChatten