Where There's a Will

William Beaudine | 1936 | ★★½
A flat broke solicitor – oft sozzled and decidedly incompetent – the black sheep of an old, moneyed family – unwittingly becomes party to a major robbery, when a gang of American mobsters speciously hires his services in order to cut through the floor of his office to the bank vault below. However, a Christmas fancy dress party at his brother-in-law’s large country mansion – targeted by that very same group of thieves – gives him the opportunity to redeem himself by preventing their latest larcenous scheme, in this inconsistently diverting star comedy. Hay is predictably excellent in the central role, as is Graham Moffatt in an all too brief appearance as an impertinent office boy – his first collaboration with Hay. Gina Malo, Gibb McLaughlin, and Davina Craig also do well as, respectively, a sexy American vamp, a drunken "teetotal" butler, and a decidedly dopey maid. However the plot – always the least interesting aspect of a Will Hay film – isn’t really up to much.