Jack Benny, Kay Francis & Anne Baxter in Archie Mayo's "Charley's Aunt" (1941)

In 1890, Lord Fancourt Babberly (Jack Benny), known to his friends as Babbs, has been studying at Oxford for ten years to obtain a three-year degree before joining his uncle Hilary's (Lionel Pape) law firm. During a cricket match, Babbs is annoyed by schoolmate Harley Stafford (Morton Lowry) and their subsequent chase ends with Babbs unconscious, holding onto the rope of the fire bell. About to be expelled for his inadvertent prank, Babbs tells the Mr. Redcliff (Reginald Owen), that his friends, Jack Chesney (James Ellison) and Charley Wyckham (Richard Haydn), were witnesses to the event and can prove his innocence. Babbs returns to his room, and finds Jack and Charley are upset, for Stephen Spettigue (Edmund Gwenn), the guardian of their respective girl friends, Amy Spettigue (Anne Baxter) and Kitty Verdun (Arleen Whelan), intends to take the girls away. Jack and Charley have invited the girls to tea, during which they will propose. The intended chaperone is Charley's Brazilian aunt, Donna Lucia d'Alvadorez (Kay Francis), whom he has never met. Donna Lucia visits her heir Charley incognito, as Spettigue is a well-known fortune hunter. Hilary sends Babbs a telegram ordering him to entertain Mrs. Beverly Smythe, the name Donna Lucia plans to use. Babbs appears in the dress he is to wear for the school variety show, Charley and Jack blackmail him into impersonating donna Lucia in exchange for their testimony to Redcliff. Babbs assumes the role of the aunt from Brazil, and must fend off the attentions of Spettigue and Jack's father, Sir Francis Chesney (Laird Cregar), who are both after Lucia's fortune. The real Lucia arrives at Oxford, and Babbs spends a wearying afternoon going back and forth entertaining her as himself and impersonating her to keep Spettigue and Chesney away from the romancing young couples. Jack and Charley convince Babbs to continue the charade at dinner, during which Lucia secretly deduces his real identity. After dinner, Babbs and Lucia pursue their own romance in the garden, and when Chesney sees them, he deduces the nature of the ruse and laughingly congratulates Spettigue on his incipient engagement. After Babbs wheedles the consent from Spettigue, his identity is revealed. Spettigue declares that the consent is invalid, as it is addressed to Donna Lucia d'Alvadorez, but Lucia then reveals her own identity. As Babbs wonders if Spettigue can sue him for breach of promise, he receives a kiss from Lucia, and Jack and Charley embrace Kitty and Amy. A 1941 American Black & White historical slapstick romantic comedy film directed by Archie Mayo, produced by William Perlberg, written by George Seaton, cinematography by J. Peverell Marley, starring Jack Benny, Kay Francis, Anne Baxter, James Ellison, Edmund Gwenn, Laird Cregar, Reginald Owen, Arleen Whelan, Richard Haydn, Ernest Cossart, Morton Lowry, Will Stanton, Lionel Pape, C. Montague Shaw, Maurice Cass, Claud Allister, and William Austin. Richard Haydn's first feature film role. The Italian post-synchronization of this film was actually made in Spain where a group of Italian actors where stuck due to the war raging in Europe. They were Paola Barbara, Emilio Cigoli, Nerio Bernardi, Felice Romano and Anita Farra. It was the fourth American filmed version of the 1892 stage farce of the same name by Brandon Thomas. It remained one of Benny's personal favourites among his own films. The film was promoted on The Jell-o Program, the name for Benny's radio show at the time. The plot of the 18 May 1941 episode sees the cast visit Jack "on-set". One gag sees Benny's contract require him to feed Darryl F. Zanuck's horse. The film was the 8th most popular movie at the US box office in 1941, and a clip was shown in "Myra Breckinridge" (1970). Somewhat a landmark film for 20th Century-Fox, as it was the first film they offered the exhibitors under the recently-established terms of the consent decree, conditions that no longer allowed a film studio or company to force the exhibitors to book a large block of films from the same company in order to get any film from that company in a production season. They could still require the exhibitor to make bookings in blocks of five, and "Charley's Aunt" was the first of the five offered. The other four could have been turkeys, but they had to be booked in order to get "Charley's Aunt." According to TV Guide, "Jack Benny was never better (with the possible exception of his classic To Be or Not to Be) and carries the film with a top-flight performance. This was his first role of any consequence other than his previous tailor-made parts with radio jokes flying thick and fast around his well-known persona." The New York Times wrote "when the Benny physiognomy peered impishly from behind a lacy fan, the audience held its sides, and when in the final scene his wig vanished to leave his masculine coiffure stark naked, there was a roar of laughter that must have shaken the Roxy's rococo ceiling".