Inspector Hornleigh (1939)

I rather enjoyed this quickly paced mystery. When a suitcase is discovered that contains the Chancellor of the Exchequer's famous budget box, our eponymous police inspector (Gordon Harker) and his amiable sidekick "Sgt. Bingham" (Alastair Sim) discover that someone has had access to the top secret treasury document and maybe using the information contained within to steal a march of the actual budget announcement and damage the fiscal future of the nation... There is a good dynamic between the two - with Sim good fun as the bumbling support act helping along his shrewd boss. The dialogue is quite witty at times, and though the investigation itself is a bit ho-hum, the characters offer us a little more to get behind as their efforts to track down the culprits build up steam. Harker knew how to keep the audience interested with a combination of amusing facial expressions and quick wittedness, and he does that well here making for a much more entertaining - if probably twenty minutes too long - crime caper.