WILL HAY FARCE

Evening Star, Issue 23497, 10 February 1940, Page 19

WILL HAY FARCE

AMATEUR SMUGGLERS IM THE FORCE lb is doubtful if Will Hay lias ever done anything so absurdly funny as tho hilarious character sketch which he presents iu. ' Ask a Policeman,' which is tho principal attraction at the Grand. Hay is one of three extremely bucolic policemen' whose lives have, lor about 10 years, fallen in pleasant places. There-'has been such a remarkable absence of crime that the chief constable determines he may as well do away with the police force altogether. The result is consternation among Hay and his two fellow officer* l —Graham Moifatt and Moore Marriott—and they put three somewhat rusty heads together and work out a crime. Smuggling is to be the crime, and the technique of it is to be that a keg of brandy will bo> put on the beach by two of the'policemen and discovered in the presence of witnesses by the' third, who will immediately report the find to the chief constable. Just as the third policeman and his witness are to make the momentous discovery, there is brought homo to the'three luckless ones that a real'smuggler has been at work, and that their town, in which they have so easily preserved law'and. order for so long', is the .centre of a, Veritable- '.racket. In solving the mystery they find that the clue is in the last "line of a rhyme, which, unfortunately, is missing. Neither Will Hay nor Graham Moffatt has ever heard of the rhyme before, but the ancient Moore Marriott manages to recite the three first lines, but no- more. A thrilling story of'a modern Bobin Hood is the associate feature, ' Crackerjack.' The" famous English actor, Tom Walls, is " Crackerjack," a man of many disguises, and he first comes iiito the story as a young man of apparently unlimited '"means who is flying from the Continent to England on a cross-Channel plane. The hero next bobs up in England, where he steals the famous Humboldt pearls. Unfortunately, another gang commences to trado on " Crackerjack's " name, and by it a murder is committed, for which he gets the blame. Romance enters into tho film when a. wealthy German baroness with whom tho hero has'previously been in love recognises him under one of His "many aliases, and decides to find out what he is-'up ; to. By sheer audacity and with the assistance qf the baroness, " Crackerjack " finally turns the tables on tho rival gang, and he succeeds in making good his. escape, the film closing on l a romantic note. The Australian'star, Lilli'Palmer, has ; i!he leading female role.