This collection of feature films stars the legendary Will Hay in some of his most celebrated roles.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2301 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-09-01
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Number of discs: 9
• Running time: 720 minutes

Synopsis
This collection of feature films stars the legendary Will Hay in some of his most celebrated roles. Titles includes ASK A POLICEMAN, BOYS WILL BE BOYS, CONVICT 99, GOOD MORNING BOYS, HEY! HEY! USA, OH MR PORTER, OLD BONES OF THE RIVER, WHERE THERE'S A WILL, and WINDBAG THE SAILOR.

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Customer Reviews

Fantastically funny
I'd not seen Will Hay since my early youth when his films were shown on Saturday morning tv. I couldn't recall Hay's work being so funny but 30 years on they are so much better, the humour is sharp, witty and so rapidly delivered. One liners just keep on coming, there's no time to recover and I laughed so hard I had to clutch my ribs!! Excellent boxed set that really does justice to the Will Hay 'team'.

A good collection of one of the best British comedians
Although seen a lot on tv when I was young, Will Hay's comedies have largely disappeared from the screen these days. This is sad as the comedy is as fresh as it ever was and deserves a wider audience. Anyone who enjoys the more familiar American comedians of the time such as Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers and WC Fields would be sure to enjoy our very own Will.

His persona is of the bewildered and pompous man of authority who doesn't realize that he's an idiot. I was struck on seeing his movies after many years that he provides the genesis of characters such as Captain Mainwaring from Dads' Army with perhaps even a bit of Father Ted!

That aside these nine films are not a complete collection, but they take in his golden middle period of the movies he mainly made for Gainsborough in the late 1930s. The most well-known is Oh, Mr Porter in which he perfects his ensemble act with side-kicks Graham Moffatt and Moore Marriott. Moffatt plays Albert, a round, cheeky, overgrown kid. Marriott as Harbottle is the perfect foil for him in that Moffatt played a character who was a lot younger than the actor and Marriott, who was about the same age as Will, plays a decrepit and cantankerous old-timer. Both side-kicks are devious and treat Will with comic contempt.

The films featuring their three-part relationship are Will's best, and involve the threesome being put in different situations and settings where they can create havoc. Their quick banter and slapstick are always entertaining and so it's good that all their joint films are in this collection. My personal favourite is Ask A Policeman featuring a sleepy town devoid of crime, which creates a pleasant vision of rural England. It's also good that these short films always contain valid plots that actually hang together as proper stories on which to hang the jokes.

Sadly, by the 1940s Will Hay, I believe, broke up the partnership and in his last years he made several less funny films, usually trying and failing to form effective double acts with people such as Charles Hawtry. Luckily these films are not in this collection, but unluckily this means his final film My Learned Friend isn't here, a black comedy that is his finest film and which deserves to be remembered as being as accomplished as the more well-known Kind Hearts and Coronets. If you like this collection, this is the one remaining Will Hay film you need to track down.

The master at work
From the golden age of comedy, Will Hay is one of the greatest British comedians of all time. A major star of the 1930's. Hay relishes playing pompous, incompetent, authority figures. His misanthropic antics have inspired many great funny men and never fail to raise a full-hearty laugh.
Aside from his day job as a comedian, Hay was a dedicated and respected amateur astronomer. His personal observatory sat in his garden in Mill Hill, the dome very visible from the main Hendon Road. He became a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1932. He is noted for having discovered a white spot on the planet Saturn in 1933; the spot lasted for a few months and then faded. He also measured the positions of comets with a micrometer he built himself, and designed and built a blink comparator. He wrote the book Through My Telescope in 1935. At his death, his telescopes were bequeathed to University College, London, and are still used for teaching astronomy.
He was also one of Britain's first private pilots and gave flying lessons to Amy Johnson.
These films on DVD are to be thoroughly recommended to all Will Hay fans.