Don't Take It To Heart! is a most enjoyable outing. Greene is pleasant enough as the hero, Patricia Medina (using her charming natural voice instead of that mid-Atlantic accent she adopted for her Hollywood films) makes a spirited heroine. But the real joys of the film lie in that wonderful gallery of British eccentrics that participate in the main plot and help prop up the secondary romance. Some of my favorites are Claude Dampier as an obliging cretin, Edward Rigby as a gladly ill-used servant who has the film's keynote speech and trips a shuffling fantastic through endless halls to answer the telephone, Moore Marriott who is more subdued than his usual totally irascible but gladly plays up to the not overbright Loopy, Alfred Drayton as the rights-conscious Pike, Ronald Squire as a typically imbecilic figure of the landed gentry who mistakes "Auld Lang Syne" for the national anthem, Harry Fowler who is so young here but just as cheeky, and of course Brefni O'Rorke who can dance such a treat when the credits are down.Expectedly, Dell's direction is as imaginative as his script is sprightly. In the opening scenes it seems as if the camera is almost constantly on the move. The special effects are likewise faultless. And the sets, doubtless made over from a real castle, are as impressively vast as picturesque. Eric Cross, later to work with Dell on The Dark Man, provides his usual superlative camerawork.

When a German bomb lands on a crypt, the explosion lets out the ghost of a bad old earl, and lets loose a roundabout plot involving a decayed aristocrat, his tenant, who wishes to enclose a cricket pitch annoying the local villagers, Richard Greene, who has shown up to look at some recently revealed old manuscripts and his real life wife, Patricia Medina, as the earl's daughter.There's a fair amount of well-constructed social satire in this production, as well as some good jokes, and the amount of silliness increases at a steady pace throughout, as the ghost becomes more and more active in setting things right. A goodly number of screen comics get a chance to amuse the audience, particularly Edward Rigby as the butler, Moore Marriott as the inevitable ciderhouse layabout and Joan Hickson, when she was merely middle-aged -- doubtless, if she ever appeared in any movies when she was young, they were produced by Robert W. Paul.Although the movie becomes a bit too cartoonish for my taste at the three-quarters mark, it recovers itself nicely at the end and makes its points, humorous, dramatic and serious, nicely by the end.

This picture deserves more publicity. It is a charming British comedy with a great sense of goofiness that the Brits used to do so well.In it, our hero Richard Greene displays the wonderful charm we remember so well from his subsequent "Robin Hood" TV series. As the reluctant Lord (who secretly yearns for commoner vices), Brefni O'Rorke is delightfully wise, subtle, and droll. Even Ivor Barnard, in his brief cameo, is memorable as a French refugee bus driver. (Apparently, he apprenticed in a Parisian taxi.) And scattered throughout the film are many funny bits (such as rival lawyers continually attempting to one-up each other with earlier and more obscure citations.) Indeed, my only disappointment was over the ghost's role. More could have been done with him. Since sheep have a crucial role in the picture, for example, perhaps, as a sight gag, a ghostly encounter might have turned some black ones white. Also, the ghost's fate should somehow have been intertwined with that of the obnoxious plaintiff, who, after the trial, just seems to abruptly disappear, as if forgotten.

A pleasant and amusing but far from brilliant old British comedy, more often than not it is too silly for its own good, and some of the comedy bits are a bit awkward. The biggest problem with it all is however that the plot is tad too complex, in view of the light-hearted manner in which the material is treated. Still, the film certainly has its fair share of virtues. The cinematographer makes good use of lime lapse and zooming, plus the set design is interesting. Having Moore Marriott on hand is always a good thing too, even though this time he is not quite as delightful as usual. The special effects are okay for the time, and so is the overall quality of the picture. It is nothing really special, but it is quite satisfactory stuff.