DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002A6H70I/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=d...
http://thefilmarchive.org/
Convict 99 is a 1938 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring British comedian Will Hay and Googie Withers.
Incompetent Dr Benjamin Twist (Will Hay) is dismissed from his job as headmaster at St. Michaels' School (the school returns in a later film The Ghost of St. Michael's), and applies for a job in another school.
Unknowingly, Twist is confused at the Labour Exchange for John Benjamin, a strict prison governor recently arrived from Australia who is applying for the vacancy at Blakedown Prison in Devon. On the way to what Twist believes is the school, he becomes drunk, and on arrival is mistaken for Max Slessor a prisoner who had escaped during a jailbreak.
Designated Convict 99 and sentenced to seven years for forgery, Twist is soon discovered to be the new Prison Governor, and once put in his (dubilously) rightful place embarks on a programme to make the prison a more friendly place for the prisoners, funding it from the proceeds of a football pools win and stock market investments.
Things take a turn for the worse, when one of the prisoners absconds with the entire prison funds. Twist and some of the convicts head to Limehouse, in east London to catch the errant prisoner, recover the lost funds and successfully break into a bank in order to return the funds.
Cast Will Hay - Dr Benjamin Twist Moore Marriott - Jerry the Mole Graham Moffatt - Albert Googie Withers - Lottie "the Baroness" Peter Gawthorne - Sir Cyril Basil Radford - Deputy Governor Dennis Wyndham - Head Warder Wilfred Walter - Max Slessor Alf Goddard - Sykes Basil McGrail - Bates Kathleen Harrison - Mable Roddy McDowall - Jimmy Teddy Brown - Slim Charlie Bertha Belmore - Tiara Lady George Merritt - Patrolman Roy Emerton - John Benjamin
William Thomson "Will" Hay (6 December 1888 -- 18 April 1949) was an English comedian, actor, film director and amateur astronomer.
Hay was trained as an engineer and joined a firm of engineers but at the age of 21 he gave up that profession for the stage, starting in Manchester, as a juggler, self-taught after seeing W C Fields doing it in a film. Later, he took up acting. He had a relatively brief screen career: by the time he made his first film he was in his mid-40s and an established music hall artist, and his last role came less than a decade later. But between 1934 and 1943 he was a prolific and popular film comedian. He was credited on several films as a writer or co-ordinator, and was arguably the dominant "author" of all the films in which he appeared, in that they were built around his persona and depended on the character and routines he had developed over years on the stage.
He worked at the British film studios of Elstree, then Gainsborough, then Ealing; the Gainsborough period was the most consistently successful, particularly when he worked with the team of Marcel Varnel (director), Val Guest and Marriott Edgar (writers), and Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt (supporting cast) - as on the railway film Oh, Mr Porter! (1937), his most fondly remembered picture with its catchphrase, 'The next train's gone!', spoken by Marriott as the decrepit old deputy stationmaster. Hay decided to break up the partnership with Moffatt and Marriott and brought in Claude Hulbert as his side-kick for The Ghost of St. Michael's (1941). The Goose Steps Out for Ealing (1942) was an effective anti-Nazi piece of slapstick, and while he was never quite the same again without Moffatt and Marriott, My Learned Friend (1943) again with Hulbert, is considered a masterpiece of black comedy which some regard as his best.
Moore Marriott (14 September 1885 -- 11 December 1949) was a British character actor most notable for a series of films he made with Will Hay in the 1930s.
Graham Moffatt (6 December 1919 -- 2 July 1965) was a British character actor and comedian.
Googie Withers, CBE (born 12 March 1917) is an Indian-born British theatre, film and television actress who has long been a resident of Australia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convict_99
