A Touch of the Sun

The courteous hall porter at the desk of the Royal Connaught Hotel, London, has a way with the guests and a ten-year contract, he comes into money, departs for Cannes, finds it a crashing bore (ridiculously expensive on top of that), returns to London and discovers the hotel closed, about to be made into offices for the Ministry of Health (a couple of gagging geezers in the lobby).

This work of genius has him reassemble the staff for a last-ditch partnership with three Northern businessmen, who see a lively, bustling hotel full of posh customers shuttling between bar and dining hall and lobby for them.

The Marx Brothers, the Ritz Brothers, Frankie Howerd and “the best-run hotel in London”.

Tread Softly Stranger

The two parties involved in a case of armed robbery and murder at a steel foundry in Rawborough by a way of London are a racetrack gambler behind with his bookmakers and a foundry clerk cooking the books to keep a false mistress.

They are, very naturally, brothers.

The structure and filming are of the utmost detailed interest.

In the end, look you, their guilt is evident to a blind man.

“Hilarious murky melodrama”, according to Halliwell’s Film Guide, “full of glum faces.”

The Navy Lark

It roughly coincides with the Cuban Revolution, antedates Corman’s Creature from the Haunted Sea (and Ford’s Donovan’s Reef), Woody Allen’s Bananas is a long way off but right on the beam, and Jay Ward’s Moosylvania is still only a dream, likewise.

A sublime, perfect comedy.