This was the third of many screen adaptations of "Charley's Aunt," the beloved 19th-century stage farce. The first starred Sydney Chaplin in 1925 and the second (released in 1930) featured Charlie Ruggles in the lead. Jack Benny stars here as Babbs, an Oxford student who masquerades as his
friend Charley Wyckham's (Richard Haydn) aunt from Brazil who will be the chaperon for Charley and Jack (James Ellison) as they court Amy (Anne Baxter) and Kitty (Arleen Whelan). Once Babbs is in drag, however, he must fend off romantic advances from gigolo Sir Francis Chesney (Laird Cregar) and
from Stephen Spettigue (Edmund Gwenn), the girl's guardian.
Jack Benny was never better (with the possible exception of his classic TO BE OR NOT TO BE) and carries the film with a top-flight performance. This was his first role of any consequence other than his previous tailor-made parts with radio jokes flying thick and fast around his well-known persona.
In CHARLEY'S AUNT, Benny had to play a part totally alien to what he'd done before and he proved more than worthy to the task. Remade as the musical WHERE'S CHARLEY? in 1952.
