Actress Geraldine Fitzgerald once complained that the sum total of her dialogue during her ingenue days was a petulant "But, Daddy, it's my birthday." Fitgerald is spared this line in the British Department Store, though this doesn't mean that the film is cliché-free. The story involves a crooked store manager who mistakenly hires an ex-convict thinking he is the son of the store owner. When the ex-con becomes privy to the manager's perfidy, he dare not say anything, lest he be accused of criminal activity. How our hero solves his dilemma forms the climax of this 65-minute quota quickie. Department Store was reissued, ill-advisedly, as Bargain Basement.