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By the mid 1940s he was a (slightly decaying) national institution. The American sociologists Wolfenstein and Leites (circa 1950) noted the prominent place of father figures in British as opposed to American cinema. <cite class="party">Sim</cite> proved their point.</p> <p>A never-youthful character, he attained star status through portraying eccentric authority: doctors (<cite>Waterloo Road</cite> (d. Sidney Gilliat, 1944); <cite>The Doctor's Dilemma</cite> (d. Anthony Asquith, 1959)); schoolteachers (<cite>The Happiest Days of Your Life</cite> (d. Frank Launder, 1950); <cite>The Belles of St Trinian's</cite> (d. Launder, 1954), in drag); gentlemen of the cloth (<cite>Folly To Be Wise</cite> (d. Launder, 1952)); policemen (<cite>Green For Danger</cite> (d. Gilliat, 1946)); lairds and lords (<cite>Geordie</cite> (d. Launder, 1955); <cite>Left, Right and Centre</cite> (d. Gilliat, 1959)).</p> <p>Where the sociologists went astray was in missing the ambivalence of which <cite class="party">Sim</cite> was the paradigm - authority figure, yes, but often shadily duplicitous, often a manipulator of official rhetoric, his sexless bachelor persona containing strains of sexual ambiguity, his jolliness a latent vampirism.</p> <p>In the first half of <cite>Cottage to Let</cite> (d. Anthony Asquith, 1941) he seemed, convincingly, to be a Nazi agent, and in <cite>The Green Man</cite> (d. Robert Day, 1956) he was a chortling assassin. And he was certainly unsettling as the spectral Poole in <cite>An Inspector Calls</cite> (d. Guy Hamilton, 1954).</p> <p><cite class="party">Sim</cite> was above all associated with <cite class="party">Launder and Gilliat</cite> for whom he made many films from 1939 to 1959, most unforgettably <cite>The Happiest Days of Your Life</cite>, as the Headmaster of Nutbourne pitted against <cite class="party">Margaret Rutherford</cite>'s obdurate Headmistress, a role that is a microcosm of his talents, of a mode of British comedy, and of the postwar decline of the upper-middle-class hegemony which he embodied so antically. He was awarded a <dfn>CBE</dfn> in 1953.</p> <p>Biography: <em>Dance and Skylark: Fifty Years with Alastair Sim</em> by Naomi Sim (1987).</p> <p class="bricksrc">Bruce Babington, Encyclopedia of British Cinema</p> <img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="10" border="0" alt="" /> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"></td></tr> </table></td>  <td width="1" class="verticaldots"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td> <td width="312" valign="top"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr><td colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="312" height="20" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="3" height="1" border="0" /></td><td><p class="smg">More information</p></td></tr> <tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"> <tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="../../../images/gt/GT_articles.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="" border="0" /></td> <td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="credits.html" class="thumbheadlink-people"><img src="../../../images/icon_document.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />FILM & TV CREDITS</a></td> </tr> <tr><td><p>From the BFI's filmographic database</p></td> </tr> </table></td></tr>  <tr><td><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="3" height="1" border="0" /></td><td><p class="smg">Related media</p></td></tr> <tr><td><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="3" height="1" border="0" /></td><td><p class="smg">Selected credits</p></td></tr> <tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/645973.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Belles of St Trinian's, The (1954)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/487587/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Belles of St Trinian's, The (1954)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Anarchic comedy based on Ronald Searle's popular cartoons</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/1080670.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Captain Boycott (1947)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/453759/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Captain Boycott (1947)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Lively drama about 19th-century Irish civil disobedience</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/1087969.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Cottage To Let (1941)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/487494/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Cottage To Let (1941)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>WWII espionage thriller that introduced Alastair Sim to George Cole</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/1015893.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Gangway (1937)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/868101/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Gangway (1937)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Jessie Matthews musical about a reporter involved with a gang of crooks</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/669205.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Green Man, The (1956)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/487471/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Green Man, The (1956)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Comedy thriller with Alastair Sim as an eccentric assassin</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/673202.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Green for Danger (1946)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/487545/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Green for Danger (1946)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Whodunit with Alastair Sim as a less than Poirot-like detective</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/652181.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Happiest Days of Your Life, The (1950)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/487612/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Happiest Days of Your Life, The (1950)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Comedy with two very different schools forced to share a building</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/1118042.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Hue and Cry (1947)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/441433/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Hue and Cry (1947)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>First of the postwar Ealing comedies: a joyous boy's own romp</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/667607.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Laughter in Paradise (1951)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/591011/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Laughter in Paradise (1951)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Alastair Sim stars in a comedy about a practical joker's legacy</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/674291.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of London Belongs To Me (1948)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/512836/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">London Belongs To Me (1948)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Eccentric comedy-thriller about a fake psychic and an accidental murder</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/1015930.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Sailing Along (1938)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/491281/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Sailing Along (1938)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Jessie Matthews musical about a barge girl who becomes a star</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/787096.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of School for Scoundrels (1959)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/487382/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">School for Scoundrels (1959)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Alastair Sim teaches Ian Carmichael how to be a cad like Terry-Thomas.</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/1233799.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Scrooge (1951)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/509290/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Scrooge (1951)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Alastair Sim's definitive portrayal of Charles Dickens' curmudgeon</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/651805.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Waterloo Road (1944)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../../../film/id/448774/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Waterloo Road (1944)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Soldier John Mills goes AWOL to investigate rumours about his wife</p></td></tr></table></td></tr> <tr><td><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="3" height="1" border="0" /></td><td><p class="smg">Related collections</p></td></tr> <tr><td><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="3" height="1" border="0" /></td><td><p class="smg">Related people and organisations</p></td></tr> <tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/814916.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Grenfell, Joyce (1910-1979)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../521050/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Grenfell, Joyce (1910-1979)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Actor</p></td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/710162.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="Thumbnail image of Launder, Frank (1906-1997)" border="0" /></td><td class="rh-headcell-people"><a href="../460455/index.html" class="thumbheadlink-people">Launder, Frank (1906-1997)</a></td></tr><tr><td><p>Director, Script, Producer</p></td></tr></table></td></tr> <tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr> </table> </td></tr> </table> </td> <td width="8"> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="778" height="20" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><table width="778" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr class="upperfoot"> <td width="465" align="right" class="upperfoot"></td> <td class="upperfoot"><div class="footer-txt">  <a href="../../../help/terms.html" class="copylink">2003-14 © BFI Screenonline </a> | <a href="../../../help/credits.html" class="copylink">credits</a></div></td> <td align="right" 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