Presented as an extra on the Criterion DVD of Hithcock's THE LADY VANISHES is the third of the films starring the two cricket enthusiasts first appearing in that picture, Crook's Tour which unlike the Hitchcock film has languished in obscurity. The two sportsmen, Charters and Caldicott, are on holiday in Persia as the film starts, on their way to Arabia. Their tour bus breaks down but they are quickly rescued by a sheik who happens to have attended the same school as Charters -- the English still treasured Empire in 1941, at least in film. Through a series of quite preposterous mix-ups and coincidences the two quickly become embroiled in a plot by the Nazis to destroy Arab oil pipelines, unwittingly taking the place of a couple of German spies as they traverse a route Eastward to Budapest. Along the way they meet (time and a gain) a beautiful German singer/spy who may be helping them or trying to kill them, and avert death several times through the most ridiculous of chances.
I don't normally like to use words like "dated" but surely the appeal of this film is mostly going to be to English viewers of a certain age; most of the charm of Charters and Caldicott remaining unflappable and saying stereotypical upper-crusty Englishisms like "I say", "old man" and "Jolly what" over and over grew thin by the second reel. At no point until quite near the finish do they seem to understand or even care that they're in danger, and surely they are never in danger or breaking a sweat or removing their ties. Still, it moves at a fairly rapid pace and the leads (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne) are amusing enough.
I don't normally like to use words like "dated" but surely the appeal of this film is mostly going to be to English viewers of a certain age; most of the charm of Charters and Caldicott remaining unflappable and saying stereotypical upper-crusty Englishisms like "I say", "old man" and "Jolly what" over and over grew thin by the second reel. At no point until quite near the finish do they seem to understand or even care that they're in danger, and surely they are never in danger or breaking a sweat or removing their ties. Still, it moves at a fairly rapid pace and the leads (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne) are amusing enough.