With the exception of screen adaptations of the Aldwych farces, the best British film comedy in the 1930s relied on recruited stars from music hall and revue. Hay (1888-1949), who had spent years on the Moss Empires theatre circuit honing his flustered schoolmaster sketch, was a prime example, but, unlike many of his cohorts, he took the process of filmmaking seriously.
Alongside the schoolmaster comedies, including Boys Will Be Boys, Good Morning Boys, and The Ghost of St Michael's, Hay played variations on his basic character prototype of a cynical chancer, promoted beyond his depth and trying to get by via bluster and deceit. Beyond the aforementioned films, Hay deployed the type to good effect in Ask a Policeman (playing a police sergeant), Where's That Fire? (as a fire chief) and The Black Sheep of Whitehall (as a professor). Of all of them, Oh, Mr. Porter! is widely agreed to be the best.
In this film, he is the hapless master of the dilapidated country station of Buggleskelly, on the Northern Irish border, facing the sack until he succeeds in foiling a group of gun runners. The film's rustically imaginative sets and props, as well as the lively performances of other cast members, elevate Oh, Mr. Porter! beyond that of a standard 1930s star vehicle.
It is directed by Marcel Varnel, a Paris-born filmmaker with Hollywood experience, who helmed seven other Hay comedies. Hay (as William Porter) begins the story as a chirpy wheeltapper, but nepotism leads to his being assigned to Buggleskelly, 'a country station rather off the beaten track that has mysteriously seen off five-station masters in 12 months.
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