Flat comedy about a man whose job cost him his fiancee. Now he wants a job where he won’t have to deal with any women.
Arthur Pilbeam (Arthur Askey) works for the BBC and it’s his job to make sure the tone goes off precisely at midnight. No matter where he is he has to be back at the studio to do it. One night he goes to a club and his fiancee is dancing with one of the announcers. Arthur cuts in and she says she’s tired of never being able to go to the pictures or anyplace else because of his job. That’s when he tells her he has to leave to get back in time. She gives him his ring back and when he sets the pips for midnight he plays a little song. His bosses aren’t amused.
He accepts a job on a remote island in a broken down lighthouse. His job is to provide weather reports. On the boat over he’s told about a mermaid that haunts the place. After he lands..so far,so good. Then things start happening. His bed is made, his food is being cooked etc. Then a twelve year old girl named Jane (Vera Frances) appears. She says she’s looking for her uncle. He’s on another island watching birds.
Speaking of birds Bobbie (Googie Withers) shows up. She says she was one of a group of models whose boat was torpedoed. Arthur gets embarrassed as Bobbie doesn’t care what she’s not wearing and changing in front of him. While he’s trying to adjust here comes a boatload of women. They’re Bobbie’s friends from the other boat. Now Arthur is surrounded by pulchritude.
Strange things start happening. People are disappearing. One of the men who brought the boat in compares it to the Mary Celeste incident. Arthur may be left by himself until…..
Nothing really to latch onto and the ending looks like it’s just tossed in because of the year it was made. Laughs are few. No reason to seek it out.
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