''I Didn't Do It'' is a 1945 British

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

crime film Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...

directed by

Marcel Varnel Marcel Varnel (16 October 1892 – 13 July 1947) was a French film director, notable for his career in the United States and England as a director of plays and films. Biography He was born Marcel Hyacinthe le Bozec in Paris, France. Varnel st ...

and starring

George Formby George Formby, (born George Hoy Booth; 26 May 1904 – 6 March 1961), was an English actor, singer-songwriter and comedian who became known to a worldwide audience through his films of the 1930s and 1940s. On stage, screen and record he ...

Dennis Wyndham Dennis Wyndham (15 January 1887 – 19 August 1973) was a South African born stage and film actor. Long based in Britain, he appeared in more than 40 films between 1920 and 1956. He was born in Natal, South Africa. On 23 May 1917, he married El ...

and

Carl Jaffe Carl Jaffe (21 March 1902 – 12 April 1974) was a German actor. Jaffe trained on the stage in his native Hamburg, Kassel and Wiesbaden before moving to Berlin, where his career began to develop. In 1933 Jaffe changed his stage name to Fran ...

. Formby's songs include: "She's Got Two Of Everything"' (Cunningham/Towers), "'I'd Like A Dream Like That'" (Formby/Cliffe), and "The Daring Young Man"' (Formby/Cliffe). Because of a realistic murder scene, the film was granted a British 'A' certificate, ensuring no one under the age of 16 would be admitted to the cinema unless accompanied by an adult.

Plot

A man named George Trotter staying at a theatrical

boarding house A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

is framed for a murder.

Cast

as George Trotter * Billy Caryll as Tiger Tubbs * Hilda Mundy as Ma Tubbs * Gaston Palmer as Le Grand Gaston * Jack Daly as Terry O'Rourke *

as Hilary Vance * Marjorie Browne as Betty Dickinson *

Wally Patch Walter Sydney Vinnicombe (26 September 1888 – 27 October 1970), known as Wally Patch, was an English actor and comedian. He worked in film, television and theatre. Biography Vinnicombe was born in Willesden, Middlesex and began working on th ...

as Sergeant Carp *

Ian Fleming Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer, best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his ...

as Chief Inspector Twyning *

Vincent Holman Vincent Holman (22 September 1886 – 7 April 1962) was a British stage, film and television actor. On stage, he was in the original cast of Arnold Ridley's '' The Ghost Train'' at Brighton's Theatre Royal and London's St. Martin's Theatre ...

as Erasmus Montague *

as Tom Driscoll *

Jack Raine Thomas Foster "Jack" Raine (18 May 1897 – 30 May 1979) was an English stage, television and film actor. Career He was a leading man of the British cinema in the late twenties and early thirties in such films as '' The Hate Ship'' (1929), ...

as J.B Cato * Georgina Cookson as Willow Thane * Merle Tottenham as Tessie * Gordon McLeod as Superintendent Belstock * Honor Boswell as Alpha * Beryl Boswell as Omega

Critical reception

Halliwell's Film Guide Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Fi ...

'' comments that it is "one of the star's last vehicles, not too bad at all, but without the sweet smell of success"; while ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' gave the film two out of four stars, and noted, "Five screenwriters collaborated on the script, churning out a lively, witty programmer".

References

External links

* 1945 films British crime comedy films 1940s English-language films Films directed by Marcel Varnel 1940s crime comedy films British black-and-white films Films produced by Marcel Varnel 1945 comedy films 1940s British films English-language crime comedy films {{comedy-crime-film-stub