Cecil Parker is already the blowhard he was to perfect in later movies. He's the Provost of a Scottish village called Beike, pronounced something like "Beakie." He's running for a higher post and gives speeches promoting the value of "a stern hand at the helm." (Is this supposed to be a snap at Hitler?)

The poor, matronly, pitifully broke Irish lady, Sarah Algood, sells fast food from a cart and is unable to pay for her dog, Patsy's, license. Driven by Parker, the authorities reluctantly take poor Patsy and condemn her to death by injection. Sure and the dog is nae but a wee mongrel and Parker has bigger things on his mind, making up to the stuffy aristocrats who will back his candidacy.

It's a big mistake on Parker's part to ignore that dog. It's always a mistake in the movies to treat a dog with disrespect. You always pay for it in the end.

A new reporter for the local newspaper shows up. That's Rex Harrison, full of his usual charming insouciance regarding the social folkways. He writes a piece about the dog and loses his job. And he falls for Parker's daughter, Vivien Leigh, slender, youthful, radiant. When she raises her eyebrows, only one lifts, the one on her right. The left eyebrow remains comfortably in its accustomed place. She's torn between her duty to her father and her love for Harrison.

Well -- here we have a charming little village full of folk who know everyone else in town, and a bit of conflict over a dog. It's pregnant with possibilities, some bad. The charm could turn cloying but it doesn't. Nor does the film turn into an Ealing comedy with the subtle touch of genius in every other scene.

In fact it's rather dull until about half-way through when the screen explodes and a thousand dogs invade the mansion of Parker while he is entertaining the high muck-a-mucks whose political support is mandatory. It's hilarious. The skinny old men in kilts are dancing awkwardly around, men shouting, dogs barking. The dogs leap on the table and feast on the prepared dinner. They tug at the hems of the kilts. Finally, the elders make their escape from the ruined mansion, shrieking and waving their hands.

What follows is a courtroom farce in which Harrison is tried for one or another crime on charges leveled by Parker. It ends happily. Parker decides it's a better ploy to be a populist than a demagogue. Harrison and Leigh wind up in an old car with "Just Married" on the trunk. Or, pardon me, the boot.

The movie lacks the tranquil assurance of a film like "A Canterbury Tale," which is also about nothing much. And it does have its longueurs but they're redeemed by the dog invasion.