LEAVE 'EM LAUGHING (I)
In the beginning, British film comedy was merely an extension of music-hall and variety theatre sketches, with all successful early film comedians coming predominantly from this background. Many years later, actors who were referred to as ‘legitimate’ – implying that performers from music-hall backgrounds were illegitimate – began to take over, and instead of comedy films being just vehicles for vaudevillians to perform old routines, they began to be scripted in much the same manner as dramas. A more sophisticated public demanded as much of the scenario as of the participants, always allowing, of course, for sequences where a speciality spot could be slotted in, so an established comedian could perform a routine or variation on one that had taken many years of ‘treading the boards’ to perfect.
Combining well-plotted storylines with countless opportunities for gags and comedy ‘business’, a laughter-hungry public, found an escape in the one-and-nines for a damned good belly laugh – a better tonic than any doctor could prescribe. The men – for as this time they were principally men – who made up this select band of box-office comedians were as varied in style and appearance as the audiences who came to see them. In the first days of comedy talkies – the early 1930s – these audiences were fiercely loyal to their funny men, and such low-budget comedy films often featured performers that would pack the cinemas in the north of England, and empty them in the south, and vice versa. This was just not due to difficulties in understanding dialect; it was more the fundamental difference in geographical areas, where taste in humour could be parochial.
Today, largely due to the advent of TV and then modern media delivery systems, such comedy borderlines are much more blurred, yet even in the comedy film heyday there were the exceptional performers that travelled well; perhaps George Formby was the best example. His light, simple style and, perhaps even more, his light-fingered dexterity on the ukulele with catchy little ditties, made him a national star. On a more cerebral level, however, there entered the scene a man who was rightly regarded as one of the greatest British screen comedians of all time. His name – Will Hay.
WILL HAY
Born in Aberdeen in December, 1888, and like Britain's first comedian to aspire to a knighthood, Sir George Robey (the self-styled ‘Prime Minister of Mirth’), he quit a ‘respectable’ career in engineering to enter the entertainment industry. After beginning in an Isle of Man concert party, Will Hay slowly climbed the showbiz ladder to become one of the best sketch comedians on the halls. He achieved permanent fame with his caricature of a schoolmaster trying to teach boys in his class, who were all much smarter, which resulted in him fumbling and bluffing his way to maintain control. ‘Where was the Magna Carta signed?’ ‘Why, er... why, above the dotted line of course!’ Sketches of this nature require split-second timing, but Hay had that ability in abundance, and he was able to use it to greater effect than most of his contemporaries.
Hay's smooth transition from stage to screen was probably so successful because he was the first comic to realize that film comedy had to be performed with far more nuances than on the ‘halls’. He also realized the importance of strong characterization, of good straight-acting support, and plausibility of the storyline. It was with writers Marriot Edgar, Van Guest and J.O.C. Horton, and the director Marcel Varnel, that Will Hay made some of the funniest British comedy films. Films such as the classic Oh, Mr Porter! (1938), with Hay as the incompetent station master, alongside Moore Marriott as toothless old Harbottle, and Graham Moffatt as fat boy Albert, two of Hay’s most notable foils. It certainly rates as one of the top British screen comedies of the 1930s. Following this, with the same team, and almost equal in success, came Convict 99 (1938), Old Bones Of the River (1938) and Ask A Policeman (1939). In fact, the Motion Picture Herald listed Hay among the top ten British box-office stars. Few film comedians of that era aspired to that sort of status.
Will Hay had two show business personas. The first was as a solo artiste, often compared to W.C. Fields, the great American comedian, for his arrogant and yet inadvertently self-deprecating style, and because both men were very competent jugglers. The second was as the leader of a zany film team which was often regarded as the British equivalent to the Marx Brothers.
He was also a reticent man, his private life very precious, and he rarely gave press interviews. A genuine intellectual, he made several appearances on the BBC's Brains Trust. He was also an air fanatic and a highly respected astronomer – his greatest achievement in this field was in 1933, when he discovered the large white spot on Saturn. He was later to write a book on the subject, Through My Telescope, which was reprinted and used to good effect as an official training manual by the Home Guard in the Second World War. Hay's personal contribution to the war effort was to join the Navy, and as a sub-Lieutenant in the RNVR’s Special Branch, he instructed the Sea Cadet Corps in astronomy and navigation. As well as continuing to make feature films during the War, Hay made a highly entertaining and informative documentary called Go to Blazes, directed by comedy veteran Walter Forde, which told in amusing terms how to deal with incendiary bombs.
In 1943, whilst making what was to be his last film – a comedy send-up of the legal profession, My Learned Friend, Hay became ill, and the early stages of cancer were diagnosed. For the remaining years of his life, he confined his talents almost exclusively to radio, before finally succumbing to the illness in April 1949. Will Hay will always be remembered as the man who did more than most other British film comedians in bringing to the screen a more considered approach to comedy. He never regarded himself as a true comedian, just a character actor looking for those human frailties which we can all recognize and are able to laugh at. This, coupled with his mastery of comic timing, is the reason his films have endured and, despite being rooted in their age, can still be appreciated today.
SID FIELD & NORMAN WISDOM