I Thank You (film)
| I Thank You | |
|---|---|
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Opening title card
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| Directed by | Marcel Varnel |
| Produced by | Edward Black |
| Screenplay by |
Marriott Edgar & Val Guest |
| Based on | an original story by Howard Irving Young |
| Starring | See below |
| Music by | Noel Gay |
| Cinematography | Arthur Crabtree |
| Edited by | R.E. Dearing |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | General Film Distributors (UK) |
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Release date
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20 October 1941 (UK) |
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Running time
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83 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
I Thank You is a 1941 black and white British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Graham Moffatt and Moore Marriott. It was produced by Edward Black at Gainsborough Pictures.
The film is set in London during World War II at the time of the Blitz. The leads are a couple of out of work variety entertainers who use great ingenuity in their efforts to get financial assistance to "put on a show". Hoping to put their proposal to the formidable Lady Randall, ex-music hall star Lily Morris, they infiltrate her house in the guise of a servant (Murdoch) and cook (Askey - in drag). After some farcical interludes, they achieve their aim after Lady Randall is persuaded to sing an old music hall standard "Waiting at the Church" at an impromptu show located underground at Aldwych tube station, - used during wartime as an underground bomb shelter. As the ex-music hall star, Lily Morris plays herself. The title of the film is a gentrified version of Arthur Askey's famous catch-phrase - "I thangyew". Also in the film is elderly comic actor Moore Marriott who plays Lady Randall's somewhat eccentric father and the somewhat ubiquitous 'Albert' (Graham Moffatt) who appears under that name in the comedy films of both Will Hay and Arthur Askey.
The Radio Times gave the film two out of five stars, and wrote, "not even the hard-working Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch plus Will Hay old boys Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt can warm up this tepid "upstairs-downstairs" charade"; whereas Sky Movies rated the film three out of five stars, describing it as a "cheerful, long-unseen British wartime romp...It's all directed by that master of comic organisation, Frenchman Marcel (Oh, Mr Porter!) Varnel. It's not one of his best, and some of it looks pretty dated now, but some scenes still raise a hearty chuckle."
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Wikipedia