While bird-fancier Lady Christabel Beauclark (Dame Margaret Rutherford) scurries around demanding certain territorial rights for British birds from other countries, Her Ladyship's niece is falling in love with the family's butler, Tom Gilbey (Michael Wilding). The birds are forgotten when war breaks out, and Gilbey now finds himself in love with the niece whose love was previously unrequited.—Les Adams <[email protected]>
In July 1939, the top-hatted deliveryman from a Fortune and Weedon carriage takes a basket of quail to the tradesman's entrance of Beauclerk House. An elaborate process brings the birds to the dinner plates of Lady Christabel Beauclerk (Margaret Rutherford) and her nephew, Sir Cosmo Brandon (Roland Culver). a British delegate to the League of Nations in Geneva. A fanatical bird expert, Lady Christobel identifies the "quail" as a thrush and sends the "tortured friend" away in horror. She commands third-generation butler Tom Gilbey (Michael Wilding) to join them in Geneva, where she will propose sanctuaries for British birds. The xenophobic Gilbey almost quits, but his father and grandfather tell him it is his duty. Home from school, Lady Christobel's niece, Joan Heseltine (Penelope Dudley-Ward), talks about equality with the butler, on whom she has a longstanding crush.
In Geneva, the party meets Polish political cartoonist Felix Dembowski (Albert Lieven) and French romantic novelist François de Freycinet (Claude Dauphin). The session and Norwegian interpreter Brigid Knudsen's (Lilli Palmer) translations provide a dose of dark humour.
Lady Christabel's outraged demands for sanctuaries and control of oil pollution are perceived as an attempt at British imperial expansion. One delegate engages Knudsen to find out more by vamping an oblivious Gilbey. A "romantic" row on the lake ends with Gilbey's appearance carrying a soaking Bridgid. The family speculates but ignores the issue. Joan springs to his defense-and tells them that she will love him forever.
2 October, 1939. War has begun. Gilbey leaves to join the Territorial Army. Misled by Bonnie, Joan declares her love in a nearby tea shop. Citing her youth and class distinctions, he tells her it is hopeless. She refuses to give up. In May 1940, refugee Knudsen serendipitously encounters De Freycinet at the train station. Beauclerk House is The Sanctuary, housing European Allied officers. Gilbey, now a second lieutenant in the RASC, returns home to find Lady Christabel happily occupying his old room. He asks, hopefully after the rest of the family, and finds a mature, confident Joan teaching English to a large class of officers. At the tea shop, he explains how he has changed. He is now in love with her... Joan no longer loves him. He was "cold and inhuman and godlike", and she knows hundreds of second lieutenants just like him.
Meanwhile, De Freycinet asks Brandon to get Knudsen a legitimate passport. Brandon assists, assuming, wrongly, that De Freycinet and Knudsen are lovers. At The Sanctuary, Gilbey gets advice on seduction from several officers, but he makes an awkward mess of putting it to use. De Freycinet and Dembowski vie for Joan's affections by trying to be her top pupil, taking extra lessons from Knudsen. Lady Christobel approves of De Freycinet's suit.
De Freycinet asks Brandon for another endorsement so Knudsen can join the Free Norwegian Forces. Brandon sends Gilbey to her apartment to confirm his belief that De Freycinet is her lover. Dembowski, De Freycinet and Joan arrive; the misunderstanding escalates; and Joan storms out. The three men plan to confront her, but cowardice prevails and at The Sanctuary's bar they drunkenly make up their differences and swear off women. Joan overhears and gives up on men. On 18 September, 1940, she joins the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In December 1942 she is assigned to a notorious RASC major who ran through 6 typists in a month. It is Gilbey, now brusque, rude, demanding and intolerant, insisting that a staff member who has just given birth return to work. He tells an aide to get Joan a job she can do. In tears, she tells a sympathetic corporal that he is "wonderful".
On his bicycle, a top-hatted Fortune and Weedon man delivers a basket of canned spam to Beauclerk House for the New Year's Eve United Nations Dance, where several of the film's couples come together. Tom and Joan "argue" about his being "out of reach." He presses her against a pillar, and they kiss. Cut to the just-married couple running down the steps to the cheers of friends and family. Joan's new job: Gilbey's driver. "I endeavor to give every satisfaction," she declares, saluting him.
