Earlier this year this blog had a look at the comedy actor Ralph Lynn. Today we are going to discuss the other half of the ‘Lynn & Walls’ comedy duo: Tom Walls. Walls was born in 1883 and had a prolific career as actor, director and producer of plays and films; followed by a second career as the owner of a race horse stable in Epsom. As a young man, Walls attempted a career as an officer in the Met, but this did not last – allegedly, he spent rather too much time ‘interrogating prostitutes’ on duty.[i]

Tom Walls and Ralph Lynn first worked together on the farce Tons of Money in 1922.[ii] Prior to that time, Walls had been managing and acting in shows in seaside towns. Walls and his business partner Leslie Henson scored a big success with Tons of Money, which started out at the Shaftesbury Theatre but transferred to the Aldwych. Walls would remain at the Aldwych for the remainder of the decade, putting on a series of wildly successful farces with a largely stable cast and crew consisting of Ralph Lynn, Yvonne Arnaud, Mary Brough, and Ben Travers as the writer for most of them.

Whereas Lynn was remembered as the ‘ideal farce actor to work with’[iii], Walls tends to invoke phrases like ‘no shame’; ‘contemptuous’; ‘peculiar’ and ‘a dictator’.[iv] He was also undoubtedly a man with a lot of energy. He acted in a lead part in all of the Aldwych farces, as well as directing them. Walls was also the driving force behind getting the farces translated to film in the 1930s, when he wanted a new challenge. Not having worked in the medium before was no barrier to Walls; he acted as both director and actor from the first Aldwych film, Rookery Nook, in 1930. In total, Walls directed 23 films in the 1930s, and acted in most of those as well as in some other productions.

Most of Walls’ film roles, thankfully, remain available to us today. Due to the long-lasting partnership between Walls, Travers and Lynn; and Walls’ considerable control over the productions, many of the Aldwych farces are written to play to his strengths. Generally, Walls played older men who have charm and wits, against Lynn’s younger, naïve characters. One obituary of Walls described his roles as ‘the dominating man supremely confident in himself’ – probably not too much of a stretch for Walls to play.

Walls’ role as Mr Tutt in A Cup of Kindness is a prime example of this type – Tutt is a patriarch who bosses about his wife, sons, and neighbours – but the role also gives Walls a chance to show off his charms in the scene where Tutt takes the young nurse Tilly  out to a West End Restaurant. Toeing the line of marital fidelity is a recurring theme in the Aldwych farces, as it is in Walls’ later film roles.

In the 1934 film Lady in Danger, Walls directed himself as the lead opposite Yvonne Arnaud. In this comedy, Arnaud plays the unnamed Queen of a (fictional) European micro-state, who has to flee a revolution. Walls is tasked with smuggling her to Britain, whilst Arnaud’s husband the King is staying in Paris. ‘The King is always in Paris’ is used as a knowing short-hand throughout the film to refer to the King’s regular infidelities. Walls’ character Richard is engaged to be married, but that does not stop him from flirting with the Queen.

Unlike in the Aldwych productions, where Walls’ characters flirt but never go any further, Richard and the Queen do share at least a kiss. The film makes is clear that it is permissible for the Queen to engage in this affair because her husband is also unfaithful. It does not deem it necessary to give any justification to Richard; it is a given that he must be able to have a dalliance with another woman before he is married. At the end of the film, the monarchy in the micro-nation is restored and the Queen returns to her husband’s side, and Richard returns to his fiancée, and neither of them face any repercussions. As the film’s director, Walls could ensure that his characters could have their cake and eat it, too. The conventions of farcical comedy allowed him to entertain such potentially transgressive behaviours.

Although his directing career ended with the outbreak of the Second World War, Walls appeared in a dozen or so films in the 1940s. At that stage, however, his main occupation was the breeding and training of race horses in Epsom. He achieved a high point in this career in 1932 when his horse April the Fifth won the Epsom derby – Walls was the only Epsom-based owner to win that derby in the whole of the 20^th century. This 1933 Pathé newsreel includes some shots of Walls’ stables and home:

Walls was a very influential and well-known player of the interwar London entertainment industry, with business interests in theatre, cinema and racing. His surviving film performances capture his persuasive charm as well as his dominant personality. That is fame faded after his death in 1949 seems fitting for a man who preferred seizing the day over careful planning.

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[i] Ben Travers, A-Sitting on a Gate (London: WH Allen, 1978), p.99

[ii] Ibid., pp. 87-88

[iii] Ibid., 91

[iv] Ibid., pp 89-90