UNDER YOUR HAT
(BEF )
A§ I anticipated, Under Your Hat provided me with another opportunity to take mine off to Cicely Courtneidge. I will admit that
I am biased enough to admire Mrs. Hulbert whether she is being funny or not. The very fact that she continues to be, considering the way she maltreats herself for the entertainment of others, is in itself cause enough for our admiration. But in the present instance, it is not only for her gymnastics (as amazing as ever), that she earns ‘a good round of applause. Under Your Hat is just about the funniest Hulbert-Courtneidge film I have seen. It follows the now generally accepted pattern, with Jack
Hulbert tagging after an exotic lovely, and Cicely bouncing along after them both, precipitating all manner of ludicrous and embarrassing situations and, of course, just as inevitably extricating herself and her erring husband from them. True, the story (which obviously dates from the years which the locusts disposed of so effectively) this time presents Jack Hulbert as a Secret Service man (temporary staff), on the track of foreign agents, but that merely provides the incidental background for a series of light musical numbers, domestic tiffs, impersonation acts and comic dance routines which are, I think (with the exception of the first-mentioned), as good as anything Mr. and Mrs. Hulbert have done yet. In particular, I should. mention one musical sequence in which Cicely Courtneidge, as a billowing AngloIndian memsahib with a silhouette like a battlecruiser, plays drill-sergeant to a bunch of maturely alluring schoolgirls. If there wasn’t another laugh in the film, this sequence would, if I may borrow a phrase from the daily press, be worth the price of admission. At least, it
would almost- be worth it. But there are plenty of laughs all the way through, You won’t hear all the gags-the latest is often lost as a result of the laughter caused by the latest-but-one-but you'll find little else to cavil at, and if thoughts of Kiev and Kharkov are inclined to get under your skin, I’ve no hesitation in prescribing Under Your Hat. * * * WALTER WANGER is keen to make a sequel to "Foreign Correspondent" and has announced his intention to produce the film set entirely in the U.S.A. Alfred Hitchcock is being sought to direct it.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19411010.2.38.1.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 120, 10 October 1941, Page 17
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385UNDER YOUR HAT New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 120, 10 October 1941, Page 17
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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