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Title: Not Quite Ealing But Enjoyable Nonetheless
Review: This screwball farce must have been quite provocative in it's day but would be considered tame by today's standards. There's still alot to enjoy here even though the film doesn't attain the classic heights of Alec Guiness' Ealing work. It's kind of a departure for Guiness to play such an amoral heel and he seems to relish it. And he does a mean flamenco as demonstrated in his scenes with Yvonne DeCarlo. Speaking of DeCarlo, she's a revelation here as the saucy Spanish vixen that Guiness' captain has holed up in Tangiers. She not only smolders onscreen but she has a deft comic touch. Celia Johnson is good as well as the proper English wife that Guiness assumes is content with the role he prescribes for her. On the whole a consistently funny film. Watch for a clever twist at the end that took me by surprise because there is no way it would have passed American censors at that time and took me aback that it passed British censors.
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