Keep Your Seats, Please


Keep Your Seats, Please is a 1936 British comedy film directed by Monty Banks and starring George Formby, Florence Desmond and Alastair Sim. It marked the film debut of the child star Binkie Stuart. The film was made by Associated Talking Pictures.
The film follows a farcical plot based on the 1928 Russian satirical novel The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov. The film features Formby's signature tune, "When I'm Cleaning Windows".

Plot

George Withers learns he is supposed to inherit some valuable jewels from his aunt, and enlists the aid of his dubious lawyer to ensure he gets them. It transpires the stones are hidden in the lining of one of six antique chairs, and his aunt has left instructions for her nephew to purchase the chairs at auction. But unfortunately they are sold separately, as he arrives too late to bid.

Cast

wrote, "Formby's on form - especially singing 'Keep Your Seats, Please' and 'When I'm Cleaning Windows' - Florence Desmond's a much stronger leading lady that George usually had, and Alastair Sim made one of his first major impacts in films as the unscrupulous lawyer who also has his beady eye on the hidden fortune".