Dear Mr. Prohack (1949)

A Civil Servant who is extremely frugal with the government's money, suddenly inherits a large fortune and becomes a spendthrift.

Director: Thornton Freeland
Cast: Cecil Parker, Glynis Johns, Hermione Baddeley, Dirk Bogarde, Sheila Sim, Heather Thatcher, Frances Waring, Charles Goldner, Campbell Cotts, Denholm Elliott, Russell Waters, Henry Edwards, Frederick Valk, James Hayter, Bryan Forbes, Jon Pertwee, Ada Reeve, Judith Furse, Frederick Leister, Elwyn Brook-Jones, Eric Berry, Janet Burnell, Ian Carmichael, Anne Gunning, Humphrey Heathcote, Sam Lysons, Desmond Newling, Lloyd Pearson, Charles Perry, Stanelli

A quaint little British effort to get a laugh out of "austerity" and to show that the having of riches can only prove a nuisance and a trial is made in "Dear Mr. Prohack," an unmistakably British film, produced by Ian Dalrymple, which opened at the Trans-Lux Seventy-second Street yesterday. But we fear that the humors in this effort were almost exclusively designed to capture the Britishers' fancy and will mainly be appreciated by them.

For the sole comedy in this fable of an official of the British Treasury who suddenly inherits a fortune and has a rough time administering it derives from jokes of a local nature and from a great deal of dry domestic talk, some of it moderately witty but most of it drizzly and dull. Mr. Prohack, the principal in this problem, is a rigidly Blimpish type and, as played by Cecil Parker, late of "Quartet," he scores on frumpish points. However, his persistent pomposity, maintained on a monocle plane, becomes something more than tedious after the first lethargic hour.

As his wife who goes in for fancy didoes when wealth is showered upon them, Hermione Baddeley is occasionally amusing in an obviously farcical way, and Glynis Johns throws a couple of droll comments as a new private "sec'try." Heather Thatcher as a fashionable hornswoggler and Judith Furse as a little theatre coach likewise have two or three bright moments in this vulnerable character roles.

However, the story is an old one—it's an Arnold Bennett novel "modernized"—and it shows its age in this translation. If this be "austerity," it's no joke.

IMDb

The other review being from an American,obviously doesn't grasp the nuances of the plot.When the film was made the country was in the grip of an austerity period far worse than the one we are in.Cecil Parker was a civil servant at the Treasury who kept a tight control on everyones spending.A strict currency limit being imposed on anyone who went abroad,for example Cecil Bernstein was refused permission by the Treasury to buy RKO from Howard Hughes.So the idea of a civil servant coming into such money however legally would have been considered quite outrageous.Alas the script writers clearly had the kernel of a good idea but weren't really able to develop it in a satisfactory manner.some of the plot seems derived from "Brewsters Millions".Cecil Parker does his best with the material.There is a very young Jon Pertwee and Denham Elliott and Dirk Bogarde on view.However the film fails to live up to its promise.

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