to Australia in 1935 after touring with Frank Neil's pantomime company. Ken G. Hall had met her socially and suggested she screen test. Peter Finch was cast after the impression he made in Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938). Shooting Kellaway arrived back in Australia in early October 1938 and shooting took place through that month to November. Most of the film was shot in Cinesound's studios at Bondi with some location work at Lapstone Hill and Sydney Girls High School. A farewell ball to celebrate the end of shooting was held in December. There is a line in the film where Cecil Kellaway scolds his son (Peter Finch) for betting on horses. During filming this caused the crew to burst out laughing because Kellaway was known as a keen gambler. "He had his mind on the racetrack all the time", said Hall. "As soon as I'd say 'Cut!' he'd be off like a rabbit up a bank and out the back to the radio to hear what had won the last. He was a mad punter." Costumes were designed by Thelma Afford, wife of top Australian writer Max Afford. Release Box office The film was not one of Cinesound's biggest successes but reportedly made "a comfortable profit". Critical Reviews were positive.The Age'' called it a "lively, well made picture". In later years the film has come to be regarded as one of Ken G Hall's best. Paul Byrnes later wrote for Australian Screen Online that: Mr Chedworth Steps Out has all the usual elements of a Cinesound entertainment – four or five plotlines, a master villain, even a couple of songs... but it has one element that lifts it above the pack – Cecil Kellaway... His performance as the little man who learns to assert himself is one of the best in all the Cinesound films, and Ken Hall's direction is a large part of that success. The film is put together with great care and confidence, rather than the haste that mars some of Hall's work. Kellaway was playing Hall's favourite type of hero, a nobody who becomes a somebody. He was similar to the man he plays in It Isn’t Done (1937) but more downtrodden, and thus capable of more anger and passion. Once again, the film has the feel of a Frank Capra film, but this time, Kellaway is able to give us a much