The Goose Steps Out
When William Potts (Will Hay) first meets his students, he does a roll-call. One of them answers to the name "Schicklgruber", causing Potts unease, and glancing up at the portrait of Adolf Hitler. Hitler's father was born Alois Schicklgruber, and later changed his name in order to reflect that of his stepfather.,Trains supposedly running in Germany are shown on the left rail track. Rail traffic in Germany has been strictly "right handed" since the 19th century.,William Potts: It's the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Goebbels.,Featured in Forever Ealing (2002),Will Hay delivers quite well in this wartime pick-me-up of a film. He is discovered to be the spitting image for a Nazi general who happens to be in charge of a prestigious Hitler Youth establishment. As you'd expect, his character "Potts" is the least like a general you can imagine, but soon he has been dispatched as a sort of doppelgänger and is causing the predictable havoc amongst the aspirational young men of the great Arian race. Hay always had solid entertainment skills, good comedy timing and a very expressive face - he easily raises a few chuckles here. Charles Hawtrey is also quite good fun as "Max" and there's even some Peter Ustinov faffing about as "Krauss" in this amiable farce that had a pretty clear propagandist purpose which I suspect would have worked well with audiences in Britain at the time. It's maybe a little long, but it does what it set out to do and as an example of the star's ability to chivvy up the viewers, it's a fair effort.,