What the Butler Saw (1950)
Directed by Godfrey Grayson

Film Review

Before it came to be known as a purveyor of low budget but beautifully atmospheric horror offerings, the British film production company Hammer ambled along with a ragbag portfolio of comedies, thrillers and radio adaptations.  What the Butler Saw is one of the more enjoyable of the comedies made by Hammer in its pre-horror glory days, one that feels uncannily like a collaborative effort from P.G. Wodehouse and Georges Feydeau - a lively country house farce in which a Lord Emsworth-like earl and his efficient butler cause mayhem as they try to deal with the problem of an unwelcome intruder, in the form of a South Sea island beauty who has a habit of removing her clothes at the worst possible moment.  We have the British censor to thank for the fact that we end up seeing a good deal less than the butler.

Henry Mollison and Edward Rigby are excellent as the fastidious butler and his liberal minded master, although when it comes to fielding the gags that are lobbed in his direction Michael Ward (later to become a fixture of British comedies with his ultra-camp performances) emerges as the unbeaten champion.  Vastly superior to the slew of comedies that Hammer churned out in the 1970s (adapted from popular British TV sitcoms) What the Butler Saw is an idiosyncratic little comedy gem that deserves to be far more widely appreciated than it is.

Film Synopsis

In the dim and distant days when Great Britain still had an empire and knew how to run it, a member of the British aristocracy - an earl no less - was happily ensconced as the proud governor of the most paradisiacal South Sea island.  Once his term of governorship is over, the earl returns to his ancestral seat in England, accompanied by his ever-loyal butler Bembridge.  Naturally, being an Englishman, the earl has accumulated quite a few knick-knacks in the course of his adventures overseas, and these are safely packed up in a number of wooden crates that have just been delivered to his vast country estate.

As well as the obligatory hunting trophies there is a most unusual memento - a beautiful island princess named Lapis.  The latter is so infatuated with the butler that she has made up her mind to take him as her husband.  To mark his home coming, the earl hosts a lavish dinner party, but this gets completely out of hand when Lapis appears from nowhere and frolics about completely naked.  This is not the end of the earl's problems, quite the contrary.  It so happens that Lapis's father is something of bigwig on the island.  Fearing that his daughter has been abducted by the British, he has raised an army and is now preparing to go to war with the island's new governor.  It is up to Bembridge to save the day...