This film has an irrelevant prologue that sees Ollie as butler and Stan, in drag as a maid. All goes well until their employer, during a dinner party, asks Stan to serve the salad undressed...
The story proper sees the pair packed off to Oxford University as a reward for thwarting a bank robbery. The malicious English students first get them lost in a maze, where they have a hilarious confrontation with a ghost and then convince them that the rooms belonging to the university dean are in fact their student quarters. They then discover that Stan is really Lord Paddington, suffering from amnesia after a knock on the head.
There are three or four scenes of genuine comic genius in this otherwise unconvincing picture of pre-war Oxford life. Stan's English background gives credibility to his portrayal of Lord Paddington. Other players have trouble with the English accent even, surprisingly, Peter Cushing the doyen of Hammer horror, making what must be one of his earliest film appearances.
The story proper sees the pair packed off to Oxford University as a reward for thwarting a bank robbery. The malicious English students first get them lost in a maze, where they have a hilarious confrontation with a ghost and then convince them that the rooms belonging to the university dean are in fact their student quarters. They then discover that Stan is really Lord Paddington, suffering from amnesia after a knock on the head.
There are three or four scenes of genuine comic genius in this otherwise unconvincing picture of pre-war Oxford life. Stan's English background gives credibility to his portrayal of Lord Paddington. Other players have trouble with the English accent even, surprisingly, Peter Cushing the doyen of Hammer horror, making what must be one of his earliest film appearances.