School for Scoundrels (1959, released 1960 Robert Hamer)

Based on Stephen Potter's novels, ostensibly (see below) screenwritten by Patricia Moyles and Hal Chester, film delivers a good story of oneupmanship usurped by decency and love - a cop out, then, though the end credits show Terry-Thomas is going to get his own back... Ian Carmichael is at his most sprightly (we loved his tennis racket twirling), Alastair Sim superbly shady, Janette Scott delectable. With Dennis Price and Peter Jones, Hattie Jacques, John Le Mesurier, Irene Handl, Kynaston Reeves.

Corus Hotel Edgware stands in for tennis club (and is also seen in Endless Night), Carmichael's flat is in Hendon, 'Yeovil' railway station is in Hertford. The cars - Thomas's 'Bellini' is a 1954 Aston Martin DB3S and Carmichael's new sports car is a 1958 Austin Healey 100/6:

Oh, hard cheese!

Erwin Hillier's photography is robust, though somewhat shadowy in interiors. Music - John Addison.

According to the BFI:

"Although credited to Patricia Moyes and producer Hal Chester, the screenplay was co-written by Peter Ustinov and Frank Tarloff, an American-born screenwriter who had been exiled to Britain after being blacklisted by the McCarthy hearings. Credited director Robert Hamer would suffer a blacklist of a different kind - a recovering alcoholic, he fell off the wagon during production, was sacked on the spot (Chester and the uncredited Cyril Frankel finished the film), and would never work in the industry again." Hamer died in 1963 of pneumonia, aged 52. A shame - I rather like his films.