Back-Room Boy – 1942 | 82 mins | Comedy | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Bored BBC backroom boy Arthur Pilbeam (Arthur Askey) transmits timekeeping ‘pips’ over the radio in Morse code, and finds himself banished to Scotland to set up a new weather station at an Orkney island lighthouse. To his delight a boatload of models are shipwrecked – then the girls start to vanish one by one. Nazi spies are behind it, but Arthur gets the better of them, also posing as a mermaid to lure an enemy battleship into a minefield. Another flag-waving wartime comedy with a plot not dissimilar to Will Hay’s The Ghost of St Michael’s or Oh, Mr Porter! The similarity is further enhanced by the presence of regular Hay sidekicks Graham Moffatt and Moore Marriott.