“Shipyard Sally at the time was criticised for being too much of a rehash of previous Fields plots and routines, but we didn't know then that it was to be her last British film. Thus what was then a rehash becomes now a kind of apotheosis. In any event, it is one of her best movies, still very funny, brisk and snappy, and with a wide range of songs and gags. Something of an update on Sing As We Go, it is a quite astonishingly apt record of events and attitudes of the '30s. It includes fine footage of the launching of the Queen Mary (the biggest event in Britain in the '30s next to the abdication of Kind Edward!), satiric jibes at increasingly fashionable Communism, typically stereotyped and vicious caricatures of American show-biz types, and perhaps saddest of all, an accurate reflection of the head-in-the-sand attitude which didn't really believe in the feasibility of World War II, even while gas masks were being issued en masse. When the film was released, war was a reality and the film's flag-wagging climax became an enormous morale booster.

“After her Ealing period, Gracie made three films for 20th-Century Fox, aimed at establishing her popularity in the U.S. market. They had much improved production values (and better photography for Gracie) and the benefit of Hollywood writers and (sometimes) stars. Although at the time they were felt to have lost ‘the common touch,' they survive surprisingly well.”