Said O'Reilly to McNab (1937) Poster

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5/10
Standard Ethnic Battles, Good Performances
boblipton29 March 2017
Gainsborough Pictures was still trying to crack the American market with this movie, in which American swindler Will Mahoney goes to England, where his son has just gotten engaged to the daughter of retired Scots businessman Will Fyfe. They wrangle and much of the film is wasted with what is supposed to be a humorous golf match. Eventually they go into business manufacturing nostrum reducing pills.

The leads were a couple of stage performers and it isn't until just past the hour mark, when they perform their routines that the film becomes something more interesting than the sort of stock ethnic jokes that had been going on since Year One. Director William Beaudine does a competent job with a standard script and a few bucks in the budget, However, it's easy to see why this film fizzled in the US and Gainsborough decided to abandon their New World ambitions.

Although much of the movie is standard, the stage routines are very good. Mahoney does an eccentric, high-speed tap dance and Fyfe, who was famous for his music hall renditions of "I Belong to Glasgow" -- he hailed from Dundee -- also does a sword dance.
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Bad Title, Funny Movie
eddie-8320 August 2002
`Said O'Reilly to McNab' is an enjoyable comedy with enough laughs to satisfy me. The plot is nothing new, a young couple want to marry but their Dads don't like each other, just about sums it up. But the casting is the thing. Will Fyffe, an old Music Hall comedian, plays a mean Scotsman as he often had before and does it so well. O'Reilly is an Irish-American confidence trickster and the less-experienced Will Mahoney brings him off with some panache. The exchanges between the two Wills are highlights of the film.

Despite being a generously built man Fyffe gives us a most dainty sword dance before Mahoney, not to be outdone, performs an expert tap-dance. Fyffe also sings very pleasantly an appropriately Scottish tune `New Years Day'. Then there's a golf game with much use of the niblick (an old-fashioned 9-iron, I believe) and the usual cheating.

This vintage movie is well worth seeking out; it ran a neat 80 minutes in the beautifully clear print that I saw.
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10/10
First class in all departments!
JohnHowardReid6 March 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Everyone in Australia knew Will Mahoney. Well, nearly everyone. As Ken Hall points out in his book on Australian Film, Mahoney was well-known in Sydney and Melbourne, but in the back-blocks he had no name at all. He was an American, not an Australian as most natives think, even though he made a substantial career in Australia and was married to Evie Hayes, herself a legend on the Australian stage. Mahoney was a multi-talented performer. Not only was he one of the most acrobatically agile dancers Australia had ever seen, he could act most convincingly in both drama and comedy and had a warm, vibrant personality that instantly awarded him total audience sympathy and identification.

In this movie he is matched with Scottish comedian Will Fyffe, himself a dominant personality with tremendous audience rapport. Fyffe's specialty was the comic song so there was no competition in the musical department at least. Both talents are skilfully utilized in the movie, with Mahoney marvelously capping Fyffe.

Oddly, so far as personality and acting goes, the two principals form such a contrast to the each other, they re-inforce and add to the pleasures of the film, rather than take anything away. Both roles are very cleverly written and both players are given witty, meaty dialogue that is perfectly in character. Both play with flair. The result is one of the most enjoyable films of the 1930s, a movie which has not dated in the slightest and is still as joyous an experience today, an ultimate crowd-pleaser that will entrance both the sophisticated and general public alike. No wonder the movie was such a huge success on original release. One can only marvel why such a commercial block-buster has been hidden all these years whilst far lesser films have been aired time and time again.

The support cast is outstanding too. Marianne Davies is so charming as Mahoney's secretary and makes such a positive impression, we marvel that her screen career didn't really take off as a result of her appearance in this film. Sandy McDougall has some wonderfully dour moments, Ellis Drake is great as the wife and Robert Gall manages to make his boy nuisance one of the most intentionally (and entrancingly) obnoxious on celluloid.

Abetting the wonderfully risible script are technical credits of the highest order. It's an odd fact, but Beaudine's British films are far superior to the Z-grade trash he is commonly associated with in Hollywood. One wonders how such a skilled and even stylish farceur could sink so low as the Bowery Boys and become such a legend for ultra-fast shooting he still holds the record for the greatest number of slates in a single day. During his Gainsborough interlude in the 1930s, he directed a number of top "A" comedies with the same success he reveals here.

Photography, sets, costumes, production values are first-class.
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