My Learned Friend

My Learned Friend

Directed by	Basil Dearden Will Hay
Produced by	Michael Balcon Robert Hamer
Written by	John Dighton Angus MacPhail
Starring	Will Hay Ronald Shiner Charles Victor
Music by	Ernest Irving
Cinematography	Wilkie Cooper
Edited by	Charles Hasse
Production company	Ealing Studios
Distributed by	Ealing
Running time	74 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

My Learned Friend is a 1943 British, black-and-white, comedy, farce, directed by Basil Dearden with regular collaborator Will Hay and starring Ronald Shiner as the Man in Wilson's café, Will Hay as William Fitch and Charles Victor as "Safety" Wilson.^[1] It was produced by Michael Balcon, Robert Hamer and Ealing Studios. The film's title refers to a tradition in British law: when addressing either the court or the judge, a barrister refers to the opposing counsel using the respectful term, "my learned friend". The supporting cast included Claude Hulbert, Mervyn Johns and Ernest Thesiger. It was the last film featuring Will Hay as he had an operation, however, it wasn't the last role in his career as he would star as "Doctor Muffin" in The Will Hay Programme that aired on the radio, the radio show began in 1944. The humour of the film was different from the humour of Hay's films he previously made with Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt and the film had more of a dark humour than any of Hay's other films. Hay had planned to make more films with Claude Hulbert that had a dark humour, but it was Hay's last film due to illness.

Plot

This comedy sees Will Hay playing a seedy lawyer, who finds himself marked for assassination by a forger whom he previously defended unsuccessfully. He teams up with an incompetent solicitor to try to prevent the deaths of others involved.

The film climaxes with a sequence where Hay hangs from the hands of the clock face of Big Ben in an attempt to prevent a time bomb being detonated.

References

↑ http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/43545?view=cast

External links

My Learned Friend at AllMovie
My Learned Friend in the British Film Institute's "Explore film..." database
My Learned Friend at the Internet Movie Database

Films directed by Basil Dearden

The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942)
The Goose Steps Out (1942)
The Bells Go Down (1943)
My Learned Friend (1943)
The Halfway House (1944)
Dead of Night (1945)
They Came to a City (1945)
The Captive Heart (1946)
Frieda (1947)
Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948)
Train of Events (1949)
The Blue Lamp (1950)
Cage of Gold (1950)
Pool of London (1951)
I Believe in You (1952)
The Gentle Gunman (1952)
The Square Ring (1953)
The Rainbow Jacket (1954)
Out of the Clouds (1955)
The Ship That Died of Shame (1955)
Who Done It? (1956)
The Green Man (1956)
The Smallest Show on Earth (1957)
Violent Playground (1958)
Sapphire (1959)
The League of Gentlemen (1960)
Man in the Moon (1960)
The Secret Partner (1961)
Victim (1961)
All Night Long (1962)
Life for Ruth (1962)
The Mind Benders (1963)
A Place to Go (1963)
Woman of Straw (1964)
Masquerade (1965)
Khartoum (1966)
Only When I Larf (1968)
The Assassination Bureau (1969)
The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)

Films produced by Michael Balcon

1920s	The Rat (1925) The Sea Urchin (1926) The Triumph of the Rat (1926) The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1926) The Mountain Eagle (1926) Blighty (1927) Downhill (1927) The Rolling Road (1927) Easy Virtue (1927) One of the Best (1927) The Vortex (1927) A South Sea Bubble (1928) A Light Woman (1928) The First Born (1928) The Wrecker (1929) The Return of the Rat (1929) City of Play (1929) Taxi for Two (1929) Woman to Woman (1929)

1930s	Jack's the Boy (1932) I Was a Spy (1933) It's a Boy (1933) Friday the Thirteenth (1933) Princess Charming (1934) Evergreen (1934) Red Ensign (1934) Along Came Sally (1934) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Car of Dreams (1935) First a Girl (1935) Me and Marlborough (1935) The 39 Steps (1935) Stormy Weather (1935) Things Are Looking Up (1935) The First Offence (1936) Tudor Rose (1936) The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936) Secret Agent (1936) Where There's a Will (1936) Windbag the Sailor (1936) Doctor Syn (1937) A Yank at Oxford (1938) The Gaunt Stranger (1938) The Four Just Men (1939) Cheer Boys Cheer (1939)

1940s	Let George Do It! (1940) The Proud Valley (1940) The Ghost of St. Michael's (1941) Ships with Wings (1941) Turned Out Nice Again (1941) The Big Blockade (1942) Went the Day Well? (1942) The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942) My Learned Friend (1943) The Foreman Went to France (1942) Undercover (1943) The Bells Go Down (1943) San Demetrio London (1943) Nine Men (1943) For Those in Peril (1944) Champagne Charlie (1944) The Halfway House (1944) Fiddlers Three (1944) Dead of Night (1945) Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945) They Came to a City (1945) Johnny Frenchman (1945) The Captive Heart (1946) The Overlanders (1946) Hue and Cry (1947) It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) The Loves of Joanna Godden (1947) The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947) Frieda (1947) Against the Wind (1948) Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948) Scott of the Antarctic (1948) Passport to Pimlico (1949) Whisky Galore! (1949) A Run for Your Money (1949) Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

1950s	Cage of Gold (1950) The Blue Lamp (1950) The Magnet (1950) The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) Pool of London (1951) The Man in the White Suit (1951) Mandy (1952) The Cruel Sea (1953) The Ladykillers (1953) The Maggie (1954) The Night My Number Came Up (1955) Touch and Go (1955) The Long Arm (1956) Barnacle Bill (1957) The Man in the Sky (1957) The Shiralee (1957) Dunkirk (1958) The Siege of Pinchgut (1959) The Scapegoat (1959) The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961)

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