Oh, Mr. Porter! 1937

23 Jun 2021 by John Chard

I want a ticket to Birmingham but you've given me one to Crewe... ...Oh Mr Porter what a funny man you are. William Porter is an inept railway worker who keeps getting fired from his various positions in the industry. In spite of his dubious record he gets sent to dead end station Buggleskelly, Northern Ireland, a place where many of the previous station masters have met mysterious ends. "Every night when the moon gives light, the miller's ghost is seen.. He walks the track, a sack on his back, and his ear hole painted green.. He haunts the tunnel, he haunts the hill and the land that lies between...." Bumbling buffoonery from the dynamite comic team of Will Hay, Moore Marriott, and Graham Moffatt. Set in the fictional Irish town of Buggleskelly, the film never lets up the chuckles from first reel to last. From the ramshackle way the guys run their, ahem, ramshackle rail station, to the wonderful array of characters they come across. The film perfectly fuses mirthful double takes with a decidedly mysterious undertone. Playing very much on spooky superstition, gun running baddies and trusty railway fables, Oh Mr. Porter! delivers to the audience pure unadulterated entertainment that's been crisply put together. Local conditions would appear to be peculiar! It's co-written by a fine team consisting of Frank Launder, J.O.C. Orton, Val Guest and Marriott Edgar, and once more Marcel Varnel is on hand to direct the nutty trio to one of their greatest achievements. Though this trio of "workers" are clearly unable to run a rail station properly, which of course give us the viewers some excellent character comedy moments, they are not found wanting in the detective stakes. Which in turn gives us joyous fun as the guys, once realising something is amiss, give us classic British scenes involving a windmill and the last journey of the locomotive Gladstone. Nicely blending slap-stick with the wonderful character interplay, it's not hard to understand why Oh, Mr. Porter! is still a critics favourite after all these years, and thus why it's still a staple showing on British television each and every year. See it at your first opportunity since it be a true British comedy classic. 10/10