Welcome, Mr. Washington

An offbeat wartime film reflecting Britain's nervousness about the Americans soon due to arrive en masse on these shores ("has the gentleman ever spoken of marriage?").

It was given more fanciful treatment after the war was safely over in 'A Matter of Life and Death'; while the title anticipates the postwar Spanish comedy about the Marshall Plan, 'Bienvenido, Mr Marshall' (1952).

Here the tone - reflected in Erwin Hillier' moody photography - is surprisingly dark (for which the gallumphingly hearty music strains hard to compensate) and local antagonists Roy Emerton and Martita Hunt a rather sinister pair. But Barbara Mullen and the late Peggy Cummins make attractively offbeat leads, if unlikely sisters.