Much Too Shy

Much Too Shy is a 1942 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring George Formby, Kathleen Harrison, Hilda Bayley and Eileen Bennett.^[2] The cast includes radio star Jimmy Clitheroe (as George's brother), later "Carry On'" star Charles Hawtrey, Peter Gawthorne and Joss Ambler.

Much Too Shy
Opening title card
Directed by	Marcel Varnel
Written by	Walter Greenwood (screen adaptation) Michael Vaughan (additional scenes) John L. Arthur Jack S. Marks
Based on	original story by Ronald Frankau
Produced by	Marcel Varnel Ben Henry (associate producer)
Starring	George Formby Kathleen Harrison
Cinematography	Arthur Crabtree
Edited by	Max Brenner Kitty Spreckley
Music by	Harry Bidgood (uncredited)
Production company	Columbia British Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures Corporation (UK)
Release date	12 October 1942 (1942-10-12) (UK)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Box office	£140,919 (UK)[1]

Formby's featured songs are They Laughed When I Started to Play (Formby/Cliffe), Talking to the Moon About You (Day), Delivering the Morning Milk (Formby/Gifford/Cliffe) and Andy the Handy Man, written by Eddie Latta.^[3]

Plot summary

A simple handyman, who also is an amateur artist, gets into trouble when the head and shoulders portraits of some prominent local females are sold without his knowledge to an advertising agency and are published with nude bodies added to them.

Cast

• George Formby – George Andy
• Kathleen Harrison – Amelia Peabody
• Hilda Bayley – Lady Driscoll
• Eileen Bennett – Jackie Somers
• Joss Ambler – Sir George Driscoll
• Jimmy Clitheroe – Jimmy
• Frederick Burtwell – Harefield
• Brefni O'Rorke – Somers
• Eric Clavering – Robert Latimer
• Gibb McLaughlin – Reverend Sheepshanks
• Peter Gawthorne – Counsel
• Valentine Dyall - Defendant's Counsel
• Gus McNaughton - Manager of Commercial Art School
• Wally Patch - Police Man
• Charles Hawtrey - Osbert, the Art Student

Critical reception

Halliwell's Film Guide called the film "a slightly vulgar and talkative farce which restricts the star".^[3] A Radio Times reviewer commented, "although he was still Britain's biggest box office attraction, George Formby was already showing signs of the novelty fatigue that would result in the collapse of his screen career four years later...The cheeky wit that informed so many of Formby's songs is to the fore in this contrived comedy, but the storyline about the handyman with aspirations to become an artist simply isn't strong enough to sustain so much smutty innuendo".^[4]