Richard Greene portrays an Edwardian theatrical impresario who takes London by storm, but W.W.I disrupts his success. One of producer/director George King's more ambitious productions.
Script: Katherine Strueby
Director: George King
Players: Ann Todd, Peter Graves, Hazel Court, Leni Lynn, Ursula Jeans, Morland Graham, Frank Pettingell, Wally Patch
The Crazy Gang tie their mobile fish-and-chip shop to a barrage balloon and accidentally get carried to Nazi Germany. They break out of their prison, Teddy Knox impersonates Hitler and they get back home in a new secret weapon - an underground tank.
The whole film is a blissful two-fingers up to Germany and WWII at a period when it looked like we were losing. It has some truly outrageous moments and could well be Britain's most anarchic comedy.
Script: Val Guest, Marriott Edgar
Director: Marcel Varnel
Players: The Crazy Gang (Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen, Jimmy Nervo, Teddy Knox, Charlie Naughton, Jimmy Gold), Moore Marriott, Wally Patch, Peter Gawthorne, Frederick Valk, Torin Thatcher, Irene Handl
This was long thought to be a lost film because when MGM did the remake they bought up all the prints. It's the tale of wife Diana Wynyard driven to madness by her husband Anton Walbrook in his search for her family's missing rubies. More tight-arsed than the American version which suits the claustrophobic atmosphere.
Script: A.R. Rawlinson, Bridget Boland
Director: Thorold Dickinson
Players: Robert Newton, Frank Pettingell, Cathleen Cordell, Jimmy Hanley
Another version of Edgar Wallace's The Ringer with a script by Sidney Gilliat to keep things lively.
Script adapt.: Sydney Gilliat. (o.a. Edgar Wallace)
Director: Walter Forde
Players: John Longden, Wilfrid Lawson, Sonnie Hale, Louise Henry, Patrick Barr, Alexander Knox, Patricia Roc, Peter Croft, George Merritt, Charles Eaton, Arthur Hambling
Friends Kenneth More and John Gregson become rivals when they take part in the London to Brighton vintage car rally. With Kay Kendall and Dinah Sheridan along for the ride this is a delightful mix of the childish and sophisticated. When it was first released it was a massive, and unexpected, success and has now aged as beautifully as the old cars.
Script: William Rose
Director: Henry Cornelius
Players: Geoffrey Keen, Harold Siddons, Joyce Grenfell, Arthur Wontner, Reginald Beckwith, Michael Medwin, Leslie Mitchell, Michael Balfour, Edie Martin
Just about every branch of the services had a film glorifying its work. Here it's the turn of the ATS. Leslie Howard co-produced and co-directed (and narrated) this tale of women at war. It's a good one too. Who would have thought lorry driving could be this fascinating!
Script: Moie Charles, Aimee Stuart, Roland Pertwee, Phyllis Rose
Director: Leslie Howard, Maurice Elvey
Players: John Gates, Jean Gillie, Joan Greenwood, Joyce Howard, Rosamund John, Lilli Palmer, Barbara Wearing, John Justin, Frederick Leister, Mary Jerrold, Everley Gregg, John Laurie, Rosalyn Boulter, Meriel Forbes, Jimmy Hanley, Ronald Shiner, Miles Malleson, Roland Pertwee, Leslie Howard (narration)
Bill Travers is the hunky Scots gamekeeper trying to win the hammer throw at the Olympics. Pleasant comedy that made a star of Travers. It doesn't have too many laughs and the cast of comic actors seems a little under par but it's difficult not to think of the film with affection.
Script adapt.: Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat. (o.a. David Walker)
Director: Frank Launder
Players: Alastair Sim, Molly Urquhart, Norah Gorsen, Doris Goddard, Jameson Clark, Francis de Wolff, Alex Mackenzie, Raymond Huntley, Brian Reece, Miles Malleson, Stanley Baxter, Duncan Macrae, Michael Ripper
A camera falls from a castle window into a passing car. When the car's owner (Henry Kendall) discovers it he develops the photos and finds what looks like a murder. The picture is stolen so no one believes him. He uses the remaining photos to track down the owner. He finds a girl (Ida Lupino) whose missing brother (John Mills) owned the camera and together they search for the place the murder occurred.
The plot is riddled with holes and the dialogue is dross. Director Bernard Vorhaus tries to use as much cinematic technique as he can muster to spice up the film but it's an uphill battle. The main interest for an audience today is seeing the early performances of Lupino and Mills. She is almost unrecognisable as a blonde and has none of the intensity of her Hollywood performances. He, well, he's John Mills and never changed much throughout his sixty-odd year career.
All in all it's just an interesting curiosity. David Lean was the editor and keeps the action moving. The music is awful - the sort of haunted house spooky stuff you'd expect in a Three Stooges film. No one owns up to composing it. Who can blame them?
Script adapt.: H. Fowler Mear. (o.a. J. Jefferson Farjeon)
Director: Bernard Vorhaus
Players: S. Victor Stanley, George Merritt, Felix Aylmer, Fred Groves, Davina Craig
It's schooltime for Will Hay again. This time his school is evacuated to a castle in Skye where there are ghostly goings-on. Surprise, surprise - It's really a gang of Nazi spies. For once, his sidekicks aren't Marriott and Moffatt but Charles Hawtrey and Claude Hulbert.
Script: Angus Macphail, John Dighton
Director: Marcel Varnel
Players: Felix Aylmer, Raymond Huntley, John Laurie, Elliot Mason, Hay Petrie, Brefni O'Rorke
When a couple buy an old ship, they fear it might be haunted. Their investigations uncover an old murder mystery.
Spooky and rather fun.
Script: Vernon Sewell
Director: Vernon Sewell
Players: Dermot Walsh, Hazel Court, Hugh Burden, John Robinson, Hugh Latimer, Patricia Owens, Melissa Stribling, Joan Carol, Mignon O'Doherty, Joss Ambler, Laidman Browne, Meadows White, Pat McGrath, Joss Ackland, John King-Kelly, Colin Douglas, Jack Stewart, Anthony Marlowe, Geoffrey Dunn, Ian Carmichael, Anthony Hayes, Barry Phelps, Robert Morse, Ewan Solon, Jock Finlay, Madeline Thomas, Graham Stuart, Gordon Bell
Sadly the 1931 version with Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge is lost so we have to make do with this one. It's still directed by Walter Forde but is now a star vehicle for Band Wagon stars Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch. Like the play it's based on, it takes a while to get going but it's well worth hanging around for the finale.
Script: Marriott Edgar, Val Guest
Director: Walter Forde
Players: Kathleen Harrison, Morland Graham, Linden Travers, Peter Murrey Hill, Carole Lynne, Herbert Lomas, Raymond Huntley, Betty Jardine
Robert Morley and Felix Aylmer are the ghosts condemned to haunt a Mayfair mansion until a reigning monarch visits. But their schemes to make it happen are doomed to failure.
Script adapt.: James Seymour. (o.a. Caryl Brahms, S.J. Simon)
Director: Vernon Sewell
Players: Yvonne Arnaud, Claude Hulbert, Abraham Sofaer, Ernest Thesiger, Marie Lohr, Martita Hunt, John Longden, A.E. Matthews, Ronald Frankau, Wilfrid Hyde White, Martin Miller, Wally Patch, Esme Percy, Mary Jerrold, Robert Beaumont, Madge Brindley, Strelsa Brown, Ronald Shiner, Harry Fine, James Hayter, Tom Walls Jr
When Boris Karloff left these shores he hadn't even started acting professionally. When he came back he was a star and The Ghoul was the film chosen to mark his brief return.
It should have been a huge success. Karloff was supported by a good cast, the production design was expensive and the photography of Gunther Krampf was luminous. However the script was bad and T. Hayes Hunter's direction failed to get much of a performance out of anyone.
The plot is simple. Karloff is rich and dying, but he believes in the old Egyptian religion. He also believes that being buried with an ancient gem will bring him immortality. Unfortunately greedy old Ernest Thesiger steals the gem before Karloff is shut up in his crypt. A bunch of disgruntled heirs and would-be gem thieves gather at the house during the next full moon. These include Dorothy Hyson and Anthony Bushell as the most irritating pair of bickering cousins (who will end up as lovers), Ralph Richardson as a passing vicar and Kathleen Harrison - comedy cockney. She's lumbered with the worst lines ("Oh, I'm making sandwiches for a sheikh!") but copes quite well with them.
The main problem with the plot is that there is so little of Karloff. He's dead within ten minutes and doesn't pop back up until the last half hour. Even then he has little more to do than lurch around looking threatening. He does have one great moment when he tries to stab himself in front of an Egyptian statue only succeeding in carving chunks out of his chest. Nobody ever expressed the tragedy of horror better than Karloff.
All in all, a disappointment. Though at least we can still enjoy the cinematography in the terrific restoration available in MGM's Region 1 DVD release.
Script adapt.: (o.a.) Frank King, Leonard Hines, L. DuGarde Peach, Roland Pertwee, John Hastings Turner, Rupert Downing.
Director: T. Hayes Hunter
Players: Cedric Hardwicke, Harold Huth, D.A. Clarke-Smith, Jack Raine
