The Black Sheep of Whitehall
| The Black Sheep of Whitehall | |
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Original British quad format film poster
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| Directed by |
Basil Dearden Will Hay |
| Produced by | Michael Balcon |
| Written by |
John Dighton Angus MacPhail |
| Starring |
Will Hay John Mills Basil Sydney Henry Hewitt Felix Aylmer |
| Cinematography |
Eric Cross Günther Krampf |
| Edited by | Ray Pitt |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | United Artists (UK) |
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Release date
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Running time
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80 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Black Sheep of Whitehall is a 1942 British black-and-white comedy war film, directed by Will Hay and Basil Dearden, and starring Will Hay, John Mills and Basil Sydney. It was produced by Michael Balcon and Ealing Studios.
When he is forced to vacate the office of his debt-ridden correspondence college, 'Professor' Will Davis (Will Hay) goes to the Ministry of International Commerce at Whitehall in order to confront his one-and-only student, PR man Bobby Jessop (John Mills). To get Davis off his back, Jessop proposes to get him a job at Whitehall. Jessop then leaves in order to fetch a Professor Davys at the railway station. The professor is a leading economist who has returned from a long stay in South America in order to advise the British government on a trade treaty with the South American nations, which could be crucial to Britain's war effort.
Davis is mistaken for the expert and gets involved in a series of interviews, giving answers based on gambling, con jobs, double entendres or just plain ignorance. These scenes are very funny and are made more so by the reactions of an increasingly incredulous Joss Ambler as government minister 'Sir John'. Jessop later returns with 'Professor Davys' and the confusion is sorted out, though it has left the BBC interviewers in a state of mental collapse. Jessop then discovers that the man he brought with him is in fact Crabtree (Felix Aylmer), a member of a group of fifth columnists working for Nazi Germany.
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Wikipedia