Hey! Hey! USA is a 1938 British comedy film starring comedian Will Hay, Edgar Kennedy and Eddie Ryan.[1] Hay appears as Benjamin Twist, a porter who accidentally finds himself on a ship bound for the United States. The film features an early appearance by child actor Roddy McDowall, before he went to live in America.[2]
Benjamin Twist, a teacher working during school holidays as a ship's porter ends up on a ship bound for America and impersonating a professor, Phineas Tavistock. Along with American gangster and stowaway Bugs Leary (Edgar Kennedy), Twist finds himself entangled in a plot to kidnap the son of a millionaire whom 'Professor' Tavistock is teaching. Things are further complicated by the fact that two sets of gangsters are attempting to get their hands on the ransom money, which Twist is given to hand over.
The film was one of several Ted Black produced with Will Hay at Gainsborough.[3]
Box office
Kinematograph Weekly reported the film did well at the British box office in December 1938.[4]
Critical reception
Sky Movies wrote, "incomparable Will Hay reprises his splendidly shifty Dr Benjamin Twist character (the incompetent headmaster of St Michael's) in this breezy British comedy set in a quaintly observed America full of gun-toting gangsters. Comic stalwart Edgar Kennedy provides slow-burning support under the direction of Marcel Varnel, the dapper Frenchman who made most of Hay's biggest successes. " [2]
Bibliography
Slide, Anthony. 'Banned in the USA': British Films in the United States and their Censorship, 1933-1960. I.B. Tauris & Co, 1998.
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