British Comedy Guide

Don Chicago (1945)

NB (Aaron) listed on the BFI as a crime film, which again they've got wrong, as it most certainly is not, especially with the likes of Monsewer Eddie Gray (Crazy Gang etc.) playing the part of a comic policeman etc. Anyway................

This was a weird film, as it starts in Chicago and all the parts are played by British actors putting on an American accent (Finlay Currie of all people for example playing gang leader Bugs Mulligan), the only exception to this being a Canadian named Jackie Hunter who took the lead part of Don Chicago, and gets booted out of the gangster world after his father, another gang leader is killed, and he is forced to come to England where he thinks he'll start up his own rackets in the UK.

Not much more to say about it really, apart from the lead Jackie Hunter appears to have been a cabaret artist as he goons his way through the film doing his "act" of miming scenes, which are supplemented by sound effects made with his mouth.

The cabaret was interesting as it had a man who skipped with a rope, whilst laying on his back - sounds insane or impossible I know but he was obviously very agile as he alternated between feet and back as the skipping rope whizzed underneath him. Also in the film that I knew were Moira Lister, Wally Patch and band leader Eric Winstone playing himself.

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