On leaving the army, officer and war hero Captain James Gladstone Wedge (Jimmy Hanley) is full of idealism about bettering the world. He falls in love with Mary Leighton (Anne Crawford), who nursed him whilst he was recovering from his wartime injuries. He bungles a proposal to her at a railway station after being demobed, (Demobilization), but his good-nature had already convinced her that she should marry him.
Jimmy's attempts to promote goodwill and community spirit amongst his relatives and neighbours are always frustrated, due to their innate hostilities, which the latest collaborative war efforts did nothing to dispel. All his attempts at neighbourhood reconciliation having failed, and seeing that people have put their trust in the same status-quo of conflict after the war that existed before, Jimmy finally settles into a flat with Mary, and ends the film by loudly playing his trumpet in response to all the thoughtless noise around him, no longer caring what people might think.
Ian Selby as Pedestrian outside Buckingham Palace (uncredited)
Critical reception
In his book Forgotten British Film, Philip Gillett argued that "The satirical It's Hard to be Good (1948) deserves rescuing from obscurity, with its decorated hero looking for a niche in an uncaring peacetime world."[3]