George Formby is okay as the comic lead in this and most of his other films. But this film is just mildly humorous. What makes it watchable at all is the interesting plot in which Formby's George Withers is in a race with a crooked solicitor (attorney) to find a treasure. His aunt stuffed her jewelry and cash in a chair before she died, rather than let her greedy relatives get anything. In her will, she said that she was donating everything to charity. But in a separate letter to her nephew George Withers, she tells him where to find the treasure she had hidden for him. He was her only relative who wasn't greedy and trying to get at her wealth.
When George gets the letter, his aunt's furniture had already gone to an auction house. But he doesn't have the money to pay for the chairs so he goes to his aunt's solicitor, A. S. Drayton (played by Alastair Sim). Instead of helping him, Drayton burns the letter and goes after the loot himself. So the race is on to find the loot and it's the source of most of the comedy. George gets help from a young woman, Florrie, and a shyster, Max.
People who like these and other members of the cast in the movies will probably enjoy this film. Formby has his frequent banjo in the film and plays and sings a couple of songs - one of which is the title of this film, "Keep Your Seats, Please." It's doubtful that many others will. The six stars are simply because the cast are all quite good in their roles, and there is some comedy in antics with Withers and Drayton.
Here's my favorite exchange of humor in this film. Aunt Georgina Withers (May Whitty), "But probably you've never studied chairs... You've never realized their importance in our lives.... Chairs - the parts they play in our life. A young man, aspiring to a chair on the board of directors, (unintelligible), and what do we find on the other side of the Atlantic?" A. S. Drayton, "America?" Aunt Withers, "No! The electric chair. And, on this side?" Drayton, "Indians?" Aunt Withers, "The greatest chair of all - the throne."
