Stars: Will Hay, Graham Moffatt, Googie Withers

Director: Marcel Varnel

Summary: Benjamin Twist is a disgraced schoolmaster who is mistaken for a tough prison governor. Drunkenness puts him the wrong side of the prison bars but eventually he gets restored as a governor who turns a blind eye to the shady dealings of the convicts...

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Though he gets solo above-the-title billing, Will Hay was no more a solo comedian than Groucho Marx. Teamed with sidekicks Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt the trio formed one of British cinema's greatest comedy gangs. Oh, Mr Porter!, one of their finest vehicles, finds Hay as congenial William Porter, an inept railway worker who is shunted off to the dead-end job of stationmaster in Buggleskelly, Northern Ireland. The delight of the film is in the interplay between Hay and Marriott, the single-toothed dotty old-timer, and Moffatt, the chubby smart kid, as they fail the most basic requirements of their jobs but come up trumps when investigating the ghost of One-Eyed Joe and his haunted mill. --Kim Newman

One of Will Hay's brisker comic efforts, 1936's Convict 99sees Dr Benjamin Twist, Hay's clueless schoolmaster, caught in a case of mistaken identity and invited to head up a prison for especially hard-boiled criminals. It's a typical outtake from Hay's bizarrely lawless universe in which, for all his harrumphing and bluster, he's unable to exercise any sort of discipline whatsoever over the men in his charge. Hay plays exactly the same character from film to film, one so ill-equipped for any situation he's equally suited for all. Whereas Twist is an incompetent who somehow muddles through, Hay the comic actor is a master of timing and double-takes who knows precisely how to create the air of a shambles. --David Stubbs

Aspect Ratio:	4:3
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interactive Menus, Scene Access
Subtitles:	None
Year:	1936
Release Date:	December 3, 2001
Runtime:	85 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C C D 8815
Label:	Carlton
Keywords:	Will, Comedy, General, Convict, Hay
Genre:	Comedy