My Learned Friend – 1943 | 74 mins | Comedy | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Unfortunately, My Learned Friend, was to be Will Hay’s last film. During shooting in 1943 early stages of cancer were diagnosed, and in the remaining years before his death in 1949 his talents were almost entirely confined to the radio. My Learned Friend was his most interesting film at Ealing, and reunited him with Claude Hulbert. The action was set in what had become the mythical world of ‘pre-war’, with Hay as a disbarred solicitor who ties up the prosecution and wins an acquittal from a charge of writing begging letters – a rare burst of competence, this, from a man whose legend was built on his bungling ineptitude, but then the prosecuting counsel was Claude Hulbert, whose capacity for muddying the waters could make Hay seem a genius of clarity.

The two of them embark on a frantic chase in pursuit of a psychopathic murderer newly released from prison, who is working through a vengeance list with Hulbert’s name near the top. The climax of the film takes place on the clock face of Big Ben, our heroes endeavouring to stop the minute hand reaching noon, which will trigger a bomb. Exactly the same ludicrous situation occurs in the third screen version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, made in 1978, where it was not meant to be funny, although any member of the audience familiar with the Hay picture would have been amused. In a curious way My Learned Friend anticipates Kind Hearts and Coronets, which also has a murderer working through a list of people he feels wronged by, and planning appropriately specific fates for them. This is not entirely coincidental. One of Ealing’s strengths was the remarkable continuity of its personnel, and John Dighton worked on the screenplays of both films.

Hay’s last film stands apart from all his others in that the tone is sharper, more callous, more cynical. And while in general his Gainsborough films must be regarded as more satisfactory than the later Ealing ones, My Learned Friend is a worthy fadeout and one of Hay’s best.

Extract© George Perry: Forever Ealing.