Boots! Boots!  (1934)

A gormless boot cleaner at a hotel causes chaos, but rescues the hotel show with his ukulele act.

George Formby's film debut was as a child jockey in a silent film, but his debut as the character we all know and love occurred in this ultra-low-budget film. Filmed on a shoestring in a studio above a garage near Regent Street in two weeks, its success made London film producers realise the box office potential of the Lancastrian star.

For years all that was left of Boots! Boots! was a rough-looking truncated print. Indeed it was assumed that there was no longer version but a longer, better-kept version has been discovered and now we can see Boots! Boots! in all its original glory. You can read the story of its recovery here.

One mystery solved by the rediscovery is that of Betty Driver, now of Coronation Street fame, appearing in the cast list but not appearing in the film. For many years it was assumed that Formby's formidable wife Beryl had her removed from the film, but she's now there appearing in the hotel show and seeming like a Gracie Fields tribute act.

Beryl Formby appears in the film as George's love interest. She's rather a good feed for him and comes across as a pleasant, if nondescript, ingénue rather than the battleaxe that history recalls. What little plot there is centres on her being revealed at the end of the film to be a long-lost heiress, but it's so slight as to be pointless.   

Formby himself is nowhere near as likeable as he would be in his later pictures – maybe it needed the intimacy of a really well shot close-up to bring out his charm. In this film, he's more of an anarchic figure than a hapless one. However, once he has a ukulele in his hands, he transforms into the entertainer most of us love.

Seen in the previous dodgy prints, Boots! Boots! was a bit of an ordeal to sit through, but the rediscovered print makes a huge difference. It's still primitive comedy, but there are now pleasures to be found here.

DVD details

No extras, but it is a good transfer of an okay print.

Script: George Formby, Arthur Mertz

Director: Bert Tracey

Players: Arthur Kingsley, Tonie Forde, Lilian Keys, Donald Reid, Constance Fletcher, Wallace Boscoe, Myfanwy Southern, Harry Hudson and his Band, Bert Tracey, Dan Young