It’s Not Cricket *** (1949, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Susan Shaw, Maurice Denham, Alan Wheatley, Diana Dors) – Classic Movie Review 10,876

The 1949 film It’s Not Cricket is an amusing and engaging minor British comedy starring Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as upper class twits who set up as bumbling private detectives and become mixed up in a Nazi plot.

The cricket-crazy duo of Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, are this time bright and early, Major Bright and Captain Early that is, a couple of upper class twits who are kicked out of British Army Intelligence after letting wanted war criminal Otto Fisch (Maurice Denham) escape. They then set up a high class agency (‘anything undertaken’) as bumbling private detectives who become mixed up in Fisch’s Nazi plot to find a cricket ball containing a missing diamond.

The 1949 film It’s Not Cricket is an amusing and engaging minor British comedy, one of several the stars made together after four appearances as Charters and Caldicott and before Radford’s early death in 1952. It is actually the second of two starring films for Radford and Wayne, following Crook’s Tour (1941).

It is written by Gerard Bryant, Lyn Lockwood and Bernard McNabb. Their farcical script may be underwritten and the playing unsubtle, but the stars’ gentle fooling and the engaging cast keep the film attractive. On the other hand, there is some dreadful, unfunny slapstick that lets the performers down quite badly, forced into knockabout comedy. The inventive, extended sequence in the theatre with the stars hired to search for a singing star’s dog is busy and boisterous, but too silly for words. The same is true for the cricket pitch finale, where the villains are trying to get their ball back. ‘This is no time to be funny’ is a dangerous line in a comedy film.

Susan Shaw struggles with the romance as the stars’ secretary Primrose Brown (‘my father was fond of gardening’), and so does Nigel Buchanan as her rich, posh love match partner Gerald Lawson. But Maurice Denham is outrageously entertaining as the wanted war criminal Otto Fisch, who masquerades as their new batman after knocking out the real one (Leslie Dwyer), and Alan Wheatley is indispensable as his Nazi friend and protector Mr Felix, who runs a sporting goods shop, though alas has to suffer the indignity of being repeatedly hit on the head by bowling balls. Nevertheless, Denham and Wheatley form a very good, silly comedy double act, one that rivals Radford and Wayne’s. And an alluring, vamping Diana Dors appears in an all too brief early role typecast as the blonde woman, who first turns up for the detective agency secretarial job.

It’s Not Cricket is directed by Alfred Roome, who later said the film was ‘a slapstick action thing, really, almost a children’s picture. What I’d do now is cut out all the terrible, boring romance stuff with Susan Shaw. There was a lot of other chat that should have gone too. But other than that, it’s not too bad. We managed to doll the sets and clothes up quite nicely, so that it looked quite expensive.’ He’s pretty much right in all aspects of this appraisal. It does look good and, with some pruning and editing, it could have been really great.

One of the things that helped to make it almost a children’s picture was that the film-makers cut the film before release for a U classification. Nevertheless, there are still some rather suggestive lines that imply a more adult movie.

Co-director Roy Rich handled the performances of the actors. He brings out the best in Radford and Wayne, and Denham and Wheatley, the last two way out of their normal comfort zone.

The cast

The cast are Basil Radford as Major Bright, Naunton Wayne as Captain Early, Susan Shaw as Primrose Brown, Maurice Denham as Otto Fisch, Nigel Buchanan as Gerald Lawson, Alan Wheatley as Felix, Jane Carr as Virginia Briscoe, Patrick Waddington as Valentine Christmas, Edward Lexy as Brigadier Falcon, Leslie Dwyer as Batman, Frederick Piper as Yokel, Diana Dors as Blonde woman, Mary Hinton as Lady Lawson, Margaret Withers as Mrs Falcon, Brian Oulton as Simon Herbage, John Boxer as 1st Military Policeman, Cyril Chamberlain as 2nd Military Policemen, Charles Cullum as Sir Leslie Lawson, Hal Osmond, Sheila Huntington, John Warren, Arthur Hambling, Hamilton Keene, Meinhart Maur, and Viola Lyel.

It is one of Gainsborough Pictures’ last films before they were swallowed up by the Rank Organisation.

Radford and Wayne made 11 films together: Crook’s Tour, Dead of Night, A Girl in a Million, It’s Not Cricket, The Lady Vanishes, Millions Like Us, The Next of Kin, Night Train to Munich, Passport to Pimlico, Quartet, and Stop Press Girl.

It’s Not Cricket is directed by Alfred Roome and Roy Rich, runs 77 minutes, is made by Gainsborough Pictures, is released by General Film Distributors, is written by Lyn Lockwood, Bernard McNabb and Gerard Bryant, is shot in black and white by Gordon Lang, is produced by Betty E Box and Peter Rogers, is scored by Arthur Wilkinson, and is designed by George Provis.

Release date: April 1949.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,876

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