Of course he's dated now in many ways, but in his day he was a great star. Like Gracie Fields, he was making unsophisticated films for an unsophisticated audience. His films made during the war were intended to be morale-building, and they were. I remember my dad telling me that he saw one of his films in a jungle clearing in Burma. When they showed 'Brief Encounter' in a few towns in the North before it was released, to see how it might be received, half of the audiences walked out and the other half fell about laughing. They preferred George.
The first film I saw at 'Saturday Morning Pictures' was 'It's In The Air'. The Beehive in Bradford had a free jukebox when I was a regular there a few years ago, and one of the most popular plays was 'Leaning On The Lampost'. That in a pub where the most popular play was probably Gillian Welsh's 'Elvis Presley Blues'.