LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

barrymn1 I agree with most of the other reviews, but there's lots more brilliance that has not been mentioned. James Bridie take a very funny swipe at American 1930's slang (the new maid and a funny reply by the Lord Judge).I don't think of this as being at all Capra-like. None of his films has this kind of snappy, clever satirical dialog.I've come to really consider this film of the best British comedies of the 1930's.The current (2013) DVD issue is part of "The Vivien Leigh Anniversary Collection" and is a really great print. Buy it and you'll see!

Robert J. Maxwell Cecil Parker is already the blowhard he was to perfect in later movies. He's the Provost of a Scottish village called Beike, pronounced something like "Beakie." He's running for a higher post and gives speeches promoting the value of "a stern hand at the helm." (Is this supposed to be a snap at Hitler?) The poor, matronly, pitifully broke Irish lady, Sarah Algood, sells fast food from a cart and is unable to pay for her dog, Patsy's, license. Driven by Parker, the authorities reluctantly take poor Patsy and condemn her to death by injection. Sure and the dog is nae but a wee mongrel and Parker has bigger things on his mind, making up to the stuffy aristocrats who will back his candidacy.It's a big mistake on Parker's part to ignore that dog. It's always a mistake in the movies to treat a dog with disrespect. You always pay for it in the end.A new reporter for the local newspaper shows up. That's Rex Harrison, full of his usual charming insouciance regarding the social folkways. He writes a piece about the dog and loses his job. And he falls for Parker's daughter, Vivien Leigh, slender, youthful, radiant. When she raises her eyebrows, only one lifts, the one on her right. The left eyebrow remains comfortably in its accustomed place. She's torn between her duty to her father and her love for Harrison.Well -- here we have a charming little village full of folk who know everyone else in town, and a bit of conflict over a dog. It's pregnant with possibilities, some bad. The charm could turn cloying but it doesn't. Nor does the film turn into an Ealing comedy with the subtle touch of genius in every other scene.In fact it's rather dull until about half-way through when the screen explodes and a thousand dogs invade the mansion of Parker while he is entertaining the high muck-a-mucks whose political support is mandatory. It's hilarious. The skinny old men in kilts are dancing awkwardly around, men shouting, dogs barking. The dogs leap on the table and feast on the prepared dinner. They tug at the hems of the kilts. Finally, the elders make their escape from the ruined mansion, shrieking and waving their hands.What follows is a courtroom farce in which Harrison is tried for one or another crime on charges leveled by Parker. It ends happily. Parker decides it's a better ploy to be a populist than a demagogue. Harrison and Leigh wind up in an old car with "Just Married" on the trunk. Or, pardon me, the boot.The movie lacks the tranquil assurance of a film like "A Canterbury Tale," which is also about nothing much. And it does have its longueurs but they're redeemed by the dog invasion.

writers_reign This, alas, has not aged at all well and I'm guessing it will only attract either Leigh or Harrison completists. I was slightly bemused to find that several people who have reviewed it here seem to think that the original German playwright, Bruno Frank, wrote it as an anti-Hitler piece. I don't know much about European politics either then or now but I do know that Bruno Frank wrote Storm In a Water-Glass in 1931, whilst Hitler did not become Chancellor until 1933. As usual with films of that period the director(s) have been cavalier with facts: The setting is a small, remote community in Scotland, the sort of place where people are born and live all their lives but that doesn't prevent Victor Saville casting Sarah Allgood as the catalyst and there is, of course, nothing wrong with that, EXCEPT that Allgood, supposedly a lifelong resident of this small Scottish community, makes no attempt to suppress, or even tone down the 'stage' Oirish accent that served her so well in every film she made (presumably she was stricken with the same ailment that prevented Sean Connery from losing his Scottish accent, even when playing an Irishman). For good measure we also get Mervyn Johns, complete with his own Welsh accent. Neither of the two leads - Vivien Leigh/Rex Harrison - are required to act or indeed do anything except look a) beautiful and b) bemused, but it does become a tad more bearable in the closing courtroom stages.

Paularoc The provost (mayor?) of a small town in Scotland is an arrogant petty tyrant who is adamant that a poor woman's dog be put down because she can't afford the license fee. The woman, Mrs Heggaty, goes to the provost's house to beg for her dog's life. Even when Provost Gow's daughter offers to pay the fee and fines, he says no because it's a matter of principle and throws Mrs. Heggaty out of the house. A reporter who has newly arrived to the town ( and who also has fallen for the provost's daughter) observes this and later writes a scathing news article about this resulting in the town's people getting in an uproar. The article also gets national attention which puts a halt to the provost's higher political ambitions. The provost is livid and has the reporter arrested for slander. Memorable scenes include the provost, calmly and with great dignity walking a gauntlet of angry and derisive townspeople and the scene when seemingly hundreds of dogs run rampant through the provost's house. One of the funniest scenes occurs at the reporter's trial. An Irish maid, who is prone to using American slang, is testifying and at one point says to the prosecuting attorney "Sez you." The judge asks for an explanation of the term and the attorney give a lengthy, pedantic, and accurate definition of the term. The judge responds with an "Oh, yeah." Rex Harrison and Vivien Leigh were very good but it's Cecil Parker as the provost who gives the most notable performance (well, he did have the meatiest role). Sara Allgood also does a nice job as the distraught Mrs. Heggaty who so loves her dog, Patsy. This is a heart warming and delightful film.