Charley's Aunt (1941)

This is a typically slapstick Jack Benny production. A cricket game is underway at Oxford. Lord Fancourt Babberly (Benny) is playing cricket. At the break for tea, a competitor trips him, and he chases him into the bell tower, where he is knocked out and rings the fire bell accidentally, breaking up the match. He is summoned to Reginald Owen's office the next day. Benny is in his tenth year, pursuing a three-year course in order to join the family law firm. Owen expels him, but he persuades him that his two roomates can testify in his behalf that he was knocked unconscious.

Benny's roommate (Richard Haydn) is going to meet his aunt (Kay Francis) at the station. He has never met her. She has met with her solicitor and intends to come incognito, because Edmund Gwynn, the guardian of Benny's roommates' girlfriends, intends to take them away so they do not get involved in romances to cut off his source of income. His other roommate, James Ellison, is the son of Sir Francis Chesney (Laird Cregar). Cregar comes to visit him, strapped for money, and learns of the rich aunt Donna Lucia, and immediately plans to woo her. Just then Haydn gets a telegram from his aunt saying (falsely) that she will be delayed a couple of days. Benny comes into the room dressed in an old woman's costume for a play, and they rope him into posing as the aunt. He refuses, but they blackmail him by saying that if he doesn't pose as Charley's aunt, they won't testify for him to Owen. Their fiancees arrive just then (Arleen Whelan and Anne Baxter), followed by Gwynn, whom Benny kicks out. Cregar comes in, taken aback initially ("I thought you said she was only 90"), but recovers in time to be suave. Then Gwenn comes in, hostile until he learns who Benny supposedly is, when his eyes turn to dollar bills and his manner to honey.

When Ellison learns that Cregar intends to propose to Aunt Benny, he objects strenuously, since he knows who "she" is. Benny intends to call off the charade, but Ellison blackmails him into carrying on. He turns down Cregar's proposal. Just then Francis arrives, disguised as a Mrs. Smythe, whom Benny is supposed to entertain. Then Gwynn shows up to do his courting. Benny needs a shave, so he slips out to his room to do so. Gwynn interrupts him when his face is half lathered. Benny runs and has to shave in the courtyard by looking at his reflection in a trophy. Ellison persuades him to string Gwynn along so he won't leave with the girls, and give him time to propose to Whelan. Benny playfully flees, with Gwynn huffing along behind. Ellison proposes and she says yes, just as Benny comes charging past with Gwynn in pursuit. Farther along, Haydn is proposing to Baxter. Both girls say they have to get Gwynn's permission in writing, and they get Benny to agree to string him along until they get it.

Now Benny has to meet Francis in his room, while maintaining the aunt persona at the same time. He speaks to her in glowing terms of their fiancees. They hit it off famously, but his roommates throw pebbles at his window letting him know that he is wanted downstairs as the aunt, so he rushes out. Cregar and Ellison come in, and Francis learns of the phoney aunt, whom she is eager to meet. A dinner is planned, and everyone bashes Benny for not escorting Francis as he was supposed to. After dinner, while Gwynn is writing the permission letter, Francis catches Benny smoking a cigar and reveals that she knows who he is. Everyone ends up happy except for Gwynn.




Owen


Baxter