It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

A great Ealing comedy. Criticised at the time of release for its anti-Americanism, the story is of a tycoon who has accidently hired the wrong boat, a tiny old "puffer", to carry his sacred material possessions to his newly bought island. find out more...