Category: Film

The Woman from China (1931)

FeaturedThe Woman from China (1931)

As has been covered on this blog before, in 1927 the British Government adopted the Cinematograph Films Act, a legal measure which prescribed a minimum volume of British-made films which each exhibitor had to show. It was no longer possible for a cinema to solely show Hollywood films. The intention of the Act was to boost the British film industry; its unintended consequence was that American studios set up cheap studio contracts in Britain and started churning out low-quality films which became known as ‘quota quickies’.[1]

Shortly after the Act was passed, Britain started transitioning to sound film, with the earliest ‘talkies’ with continuous sound appearing in 1929/1930. The transition was rapid, with sound film becoming the norm within just a few years. Yet for the ‘quota quickie’ industry, sound film could be an expensive business. It was generally the aim of American studios to shoot their British films as cheaply as possible, often for as little as £1 per foot of film.[2] Shooting sound film required additional technology such as microphones, and also forced on-set shooting in the early years, as location shooting was too noisy and complicated. It is not surprising, then, that quota quickie producers continued to make silent films into the early 1930s.

One of these is The Woman from China, which was made in 1930. According to Steve Chibnall, the film was produced in a rush. Under the 1927 Act, the ‘quota year’ ran from 1 April to 31 March, meaning that by 31 March each year exhibitors had to be able to evidence that they had shown the appropriate proportion of British films in the preceding twelve months. In January 1930, the major American studio MGM commissioned two British producers to create a film by the end of March that year. The result was The Woman from China, for which shooting and editing was completed within four weeks, with a half-finished script.

The final scenes were shot five days before the scheduled trade show, and director Dryhurst was obliged to double as editor with the help of one young assistant. The two worked ninety hours without sleep to meet the deadline, although the first of the two shows as lacking the final reel.[3]  

Considering those circumstances, The Woman from China can be considered a fairly accomplished film from a technical perspective, although it perpetuates many obvious and damaging stereotypes in its narrative, staging and costuming. The plot is one familiar from films of this period: a young secretary and a naval officer are engaged, but their relationship is thwarted by a mysterious British woman who has recently arrived from China, and who is in love with the naval officer. The ‘woman from China’ is being blackmailed by a Chinese Svengali, Chung-Li, who in turn wants to marry the secretary. The Chinese man directs his henchmen to kidnap both the officer and the secretary, and proceeds to emotionally torture them until they can break free. The ‘woman from China’ has a change of heart and sacrifices herself to save the naval officer; the Chinese man and his henchmen are killed; and the original couple are able to get away unscathed.

Frances Cuyler and Tony Wylde as the protagonists in The Woman from China

There was already an established history of racist depictions of Chinese characters in popular culture in Britain. The most successful proponent of this was pulp writer Sax Rohmer, who started his ‘Fu Manchu’ series of books just before the First World War. In these books, a Chinese evil mastermind is working to reinstate China as a superior power. Fu Manchu is associated with Limehouse, which at that time was London’s Chinatown. The Woman from China acknowledges its debt to these earlier pulp novels by a character noting that Laloe Berchmans, the woman who has made a deal with Chung-Li, is ‘like a character from an Edgar Wallace novel.’

Julie Suedo as ‘the Woman from China’ and Tony Wylde in The Woman from China

Chung-Li is played by white British actor Gibb McLaughlin in yellowface. The second most prominent Chinese character, an anonymous ‘Chinaman’, is played by Japanese actor Kiyoshi Takase. The Woman from China incorporates such racist tropes as Chung-Li having pointedly filed fingernails; leering after the secretary; and working to increase China’s power in the world. (I’ve deliberately not included any stills from the film featuring McLaughlin in this post as his costume and appearance throughout is offensive).

Chung-Li proposes his deal to the woman under his control

Although The Woman from China may appear to be a good example of a 1930s British film that is best forgotten about, it also allows us to explore the conditions of film production during this volatile period of the British film industry; contemporary portrayals of race; and a late example of a British silent film which includes on-location shooting. Its preservation allows us to appreciate the full range of British film output of this period, and to engage with the challenging legacy of racial discrimination which was pervasive in Britain during the interwar years.

Readers based in the UK can watch The Woman from China for free on the BFI Player.

[1] Steve Chibnall, Quota Quickies: The Birth of the British ‘B’ Film (London: BFI, 2007), p. 4

[2] Ibid., p. xii

[3] Ibid., p. 19

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

FeaturedThe Lady Vanishes (1938)

This is the second of a two-part blog looking at the novel The Wheel Spins, and its film adaptation The Lady Vanishes. You can find the first part here.

Following last week’s analysis of the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, this week we consider its film adaptation The Lady Vanishes. The film was released in 1938 and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who by the late 1930s was directing acclaimed and increasingly high-profile films in England. He would move to Hollywood in 1939. The Lady Vanishes includes a number of stylistic flourishes that make it instantly recognisable as a Hitchcock film.

Although there was only two years between the publication of the novel and the release of the film, and the novel is credited as the source material, there are fairly significant differences between the book and the film. The focus on the female experience, present in the book, is watered down in the film in favour of a more traditional positioning of the female protagonist as assistant to the active, male counterpart. The film’s final section deviates completely from the book, and links much more explicitly to Europe’s political situation in the late 1930s.

As with the novel, the film opens not on a train, but in a hotel in a fictional Eastern European country. The female protagonist, here called Iris Henderson, is on a girls’ trip before travelling back to London to be married. Although Iris and her friends have the hotel staff eating out of their hands, they are presented much more sympathetically than Iris and her friends are in the book. Miss Froy, the lady who vanishes, is also staying at the hotel and she and Iris have some interaction before boarding the train; Iris also meets her eventual love interest, Gilbert, in the hotel.

Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) and Iris (Margaret Lockwood) playing Holmes and Watson in The Lady Vanishes

Hitchcock introduced two additional characters, Charters and Caldicott, two men who are determined to get back to England before the end of the Ashes cricket match. This comedy duo proved so popular that they ended up appearing in ten more films, working with a range of directors. To ensure the film does not get too overcrowded, many of the other British characters that appear in the book are not in the film.

Caldicott (Naunton Wayne) and Charters (Basil Radford) in The Lady Vanishes

Once the action moves onto the train, the film largely follows the same trajectory as the novel, although Gilbert takes a much more pro-active role in the hunt for Miss Froy and Iris is increasingly relegated to his assistant. This is made explicit in a scene where he poses as Sherlock Holmes with Iris as his Watson. Gilbert even gets to demonstrate his physical daring when climbing out of the carriage window and into the next carriage from the outside of the train.   

Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) climbing down the side of the train in The Lady Vanishes

Once the pair have located and saved Miss Froy, the action goes in a drastically different direction. The nefarious gang that are trying to kill Miss Froy decouple the two train carriages that contain all the British characters and divert it to a side track into the forest. Once there, the carriages are ambushed by the gang and repeatedly shot at.

It is here that Europe’s political situation has clearly strongly influenced the script. The British characters are debating whether they should get away, fight back, or surrender. One character does not want to fight and instead exits the carriage waving a white handkerchief – he is promptly shot dead by the antagonists. The parallels with Chamberlain’s appeasement approach to Germany could not have been missed by British audiences. Ultimately, with only one bullet left between them, the British passengers manage to get the train running again and are able to get away, but not before Miss Froy has admitted to Iris and Gilbert that she is a spy working for the Foreign Office, and has been given a message for the British government in code. She teaches the code to Gilbert before exiting the train and running into the forest.

This is a significant deviation from the novel, in which Miss Froy is targeted by gangsters because she has unwittingly witnessed something she should not have seen. In the film, Miss Froy is not an innocent bystander who was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but rather part of an international network of spies and informants working for the British state. Rather than being reunited with her family in a celebration of traditional British domestic values, Miss Froy is reunited with Gilbert and Iris as they come off the train. Their triumph is that they have helped the British government gained vital intelligence, with the Foreign Office taking the place of the parental home. In times of political turmoil and with war on the horizon, it is the duty of British citizens not just to help one another, but also to help the State in its mission to suppress international unrest.

The main source of tension in The Wheel Spins, Iris’ concern that she will be locked up in an asylum because no-one believes her, is absent in The Lady Vanishes. Instead, the danger comes not from the British passengers on the train, but from the Europeans who are looking to eliminate a British secret agent. This makes the story much more conventional and in line with many other suspense films of the period. The film is elevated by Hitchcock’s direction and dialogue that balances comedy and drama. The novel and the film stand alongside one another as distinct texts, each using the same plot to foreground different themes.

The Lady Vanishes is available on Youtube.

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Escape (1926 and 1930)

Although British literature of the interwar period is today perhaps popularly associated with the modernism of Virginia Woolf, during the 1920s and 1930s other, less experimental authors were equally, if not more, well-known. John Galsworthy was one of the authors despised by Woolf as an ‘Edwardian’. His best-known work remain the novels that form the Forsythe Saga, but he was also a prolific playwright and a number of his plays were adapted to film during the 1930s. Galsworthy was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932, mere months before his death.

One of Galsworthy’s last plays was Escape, which was first performed in the West End in 1926. The play transferred to Broadway the following year, where the lead role was performed by Leslie Howard. In 1930, Galsworthy collaborated with director/producer Basil Dean in adapting the story for film for Associated Radio Pictures. The film version starred screen stalwart Gerald du Maurier in the lead role of Captain Matt Denant. The brief period between the play’s premiere and the film’s release, in addition to the high-profile actors attached to both productions, indicates Galsworthy’s fame and popularity during the interwar period.

The story of Escape is somewhat unusual compared to other mainstream interwar outputs. Whereas most cultural productions of the period seek to reinforce the importance of the state in maintaining an orderly society, Escape opens with a direct challenge to authority. Captain Matt Denant, a celebrated war hero, goes for a walk in Hyde Park in the evening. Hyde Park was known as a favourite spot for prostitutes. During the interwar period, the Home Office worked hard on the management of street prostitution in London.[1] Yet the Metropolitan Police’s hard line on soliciting meant they sometimes overstepped the mark, and police officers arrested women who had not been soliciting at all.[2]

Magistrate courts, frustrated with what they perceived to be an influx of cases with insufficient evidence, insisted that in future, it would be a requirement for the man who was being solicited to provide evidence against the accused woman – women would no longer be convicted on the basis of police evidence alone.[3] This complex legal debate is key to understanding the opening of Escape. Once Captain Denant walks through the park, a prostitute comes up to him and solicits. Denant good-naturedly turns down her offer and is about to continue on his way – however, a plain-clothes police inspector has witnessed the interaction. He approaches Denant and asks him to make a statement that the woman was soliciting. In light of the higher evidence bar set by the magistrate courts, this second statement would be a requirement for any conviction. Denant refuses to co-operate and the interaction with the police officer escalates to the point that Denant hits him. The police officer hits his head and dies; Denant gets arrested and convicted for manslaughter.

After this extraordinary opening, Denant is transferred to Dartmoor, one of the most notorious prisons in the country at this time. Rather than accepting his punishment, Denant manages to escape while on work detail, and the remainder of the play/film tracks him as he encounters various people who help him on his flight. Ultimately, a parson is willing to lie to the police, who are hot on Denant’s trail. This gives Denant a moral dilemma and he decides to give himself up to protect the parson.

Not only does Denant refuse to help the police officer in the opening scene to convict a prostitute, he then rejects the punishment he is given for the manslaughter of the officer. Arguably, the prison sentence meted out to him is fair and appropriate, yet Denant does not initially accept it. This indicates he, to a certain extent, places himself above the law. He only ultimately agrees to undertake his prison sentence because he does not want to morally compromise a previously uninvolved third party – not because he necessarily thinks it is appropriate for him to be imprisoned for his actions.

Although Galsworthy was considered an ‘establishment’ writer, the protagonist in Escape rejects the conventional structures of state authority and is willing to go to considerable lengths to avoid any involvement with them. In the opening scene, Denant does not display any of the moral outrage or shock commonly associated with streetwalking in the popular media of the time. Throughout the action, he retains a keen sense of independence and trust in his own judgement: even when he does ultimately agree to sit out his prison sentence, he does so on his own terms.

This is in stark contrast to the majority of plays and films of the interwar period, in which the police in particular are presented as the unchallenged face of authority, which must be obeyed to avoid a breakdown of social norms. In Escape, Galsworthy ostensibly offers up an alternative point of view in which independent judgement rules supreme, even if that does not align with the rule of law. However, Denant’s ultimate acquiescence to the prison sentence, whether arrived at from a sense of moral obligation or not, ensures that in the end of the story social order is restored.

[1] Stefan Slater, ‘Containment: Managing Street Prostitution in London, 1918-1959’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 49, no. 2 (2010), 332-357

[2] Julia Laite, ‘The Association for Moral and Social Hygiene: abolitionism and prostitution law in Britain (1915–1959)’, Women’s History Review, Vol. 17 (2008), 207-223

[3] Stefan Slater, ‘Lady Astor and the Ladies of the Night: The Home Office, the Metropolitan Police and the Politics of the Street Offences Committee, 1927-28’, Law and History Review, Vol. 30, no. 2 (2012), 533-573

Service for Ladies (1932)

FeaturedService for Ladies (1932)

Sir Alexander Korda was one of the most prominent film producers in Britain in the 1930s. Together with his brothers Zoltan and Vincent, who both also worked in the industry, Alexander permanently changed the British film industry. The brothers were born in Hungary in the final years of the 19th century, and Alexander Korda started his film career in that country immediately after the end of the First World War. He then worked as a film producer and director in Germany and Austria in the 1920s, as well as directing some films in Hollywood as the industry transitioned to sound film. From 1930 onwards, Korda was based in London, and he directed his first British feature in 1932. Service for Ladies, or Reserved for Ladies as the film was also known, came a year before Korda’s monster hit The Private Life of Henry VIII. The success of the latter has somewhat overshadowed the earlier film, although it is increasingly shown and discussed again.Service for Ladies is based on a book by Hungarian writer Ernest Vajda, which had previously been translated to the screen in a 1927 silent film also called Service for Ladies, and starring Hollywood legend Adolphe Menjou in the main role. The New York Times noted upon its release that this film’s success largely depended on ‘Mr. Menjou’s ability to hold attention with his role.’ There was some nervousness, then, when Korda decided to cast Leslie Howard as Menjou’s replacement in the sound film. Howard’s father was also Hungarian-Jewish, which gave him a connection with Korda. Howard, however, specialised in playing ‘perfect English gentlemen’, and the role in Service for Ladies required him to convincingly play a head waiter in a London restaurant. Howard and Korda duly conducted field research in London’s real hotel restaurants before shooting.Service for Ladies is a light, romantic comedy centring on the tried-and-tested trope of identity mix-ups, in this case with a side-serving of class anxieties. As Max Tracey, Howard is the exceptional head waiter in a high-end London hotel; he ensures dinners are delivered to perfection, and regular guests depend on his advice. With some of the married female guests, such as the Countess Ricardi (played by Benita Hume), Max’s attentive service covers rather more than just the dinner service. Despite his excellent reputation, Max never forgets the inferior social position he holds in relation to the hotel guests.When he sees the daughter of a wealthy South-African businessman, Sylvia Robertson, who is staying in the hotel, Max falls head over heels in love. The first few times he interacts with Sylvia, it is outside the hotel and she does not know Max is a waiter. He hides the truth from her, and joins her and her father on a skiing trip to the Alps. Once at the hotel, the king of an unidentified European nation also visits on holiday, supposedly ‘incognito.’ Max is on friendly terms with the king because the latter frequently visits the hotel in which Max works. Max’s previous caginess about his identity and source of wealth, coupled with his apparently intimate relationship with the king, make everyone in the hotel (including Sylvia) assume Max is the heir to the throne and the king is objecting to a potential match with Sylvia.

Sylvia (Elizabeth Allan), Max (Leslie Howard), and a gigantic snowman in Service for Ladies

At this point, misunderstandings between the couple pile up. Sylvia gets engaged to another suitor to spite Max and forces Max to arrange her engagement party in his hotel. Eventually, after intervention by the king and Sylvia’s father, all complications are resolved, and the happy couple are reunited.

The scenes in the London hotel restaurant, towards the start of the film, give the viewer a sense of the energy, tact and precision required by real-life waiters to ensure all high-profile, demanding guests had all their needs fulfilled. Hotels were about being seen as much as they were places to stay, and the film shows guests asking Max for the latest gossip on their fellow diners, which he discreetly provides. Yet at the heart of the film is the perceived lower status of hospitality work. Despite Max’s role as head waiter, the fact that he works in service is a great source of embarrassment to him, even towards Sylvia whose family is ‘new money’ and not aristocratic.

Once the action moves to the Alps, audiences are treated to some lovely vintage knitwear and a brief appearance of a young Merle Oberon (who would go on to marry Alexander Korda towards the end of the decade). Whilst all the young people in the hotel, including Sylvia, go out for skiing trips every day, Max constantly excuses himself; his different upbringing means he has not learnt to ski like the others have. As a guest in the hotel, Max becomes the subject of gossip, rather than being in control of it like he is when he is at work. Like the guests in the London hotel, the people in the ski resort favour wild assumptions about Max’s background over more pedestrian explanations.

Service for Ladies is a comedy that has withstood the test of time, and is still funny and watchable today – not a negligible feat given the quality of some British films of the 1930s. Although its premise is fantastic and its ending like that of a fairy-tale, at its core the film does reflect the class anxieties that existed in 1930s Britain. By casting the man, rather than the woman, as the potential ‘social climber’, Service for Ladies gives a different perspective than most interwar texts.

 

Prelude (1927)

FeaturedPrelude (1927)

Alongside the interwar feature films and newsreels that have been preserved in film archives, on occasion there are other, more unusual artefacts. One such text is the short film Prelude, made in 1927. This six-minute piece is dense with intertextual references. This blog has discussed before how interwar films often represent one expression of a story that is told in multiple formats. In the case of Prelude, the film references music, written text and other films which places the text in a wider cultural context.

Prelude is ‘conceived, produced, [and] acted by’ Castleton Knight. It is Knight’s first credited film output; in the 1930s he would become a feature film director working on, amongst others, the action film The Flying Scotsman (1930). Later in his career he specialised in more nationalist fare, including the World War Two documentary The Second Battle of London (1944) and, in 1953, a documentary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Prelude, by contrast, is an experimental horror film. Given Knight’s multiple credits on that first project, it seems safe to assume that it was a self-funded first foray into the world of film production.

Prelude (1927) by Castleton Knight

Prelude explicitly draws together two other cultural sources: Rachmaninoff’s ‘Prelude in C Sharp Minor (Op. 3, No. 2)’ and Edgar Allan Poe’s short story ‘The Premature Burial’. The Poe story first appeared in 1844; Rachmaninoff debuted his Prelude in 1892. The musical piece was popularly imagined to represent someone being buried alive and struggling to get out of the coffin – although the composer himself never made this connection. Poe’s story, as can be imagined from the title, deals with the same topic. The film’s opening intertitle explains to the viewer that ‘the producer’ of the film wants to imagine what inspired Rachmaninoff to his composition, and that therefore the ‘accepted theory of premature burial’ is expanded on here.

Being made in 1927, Prelude is a silent production. By taking a classical piece as the foundation of the narrative, Knight is assuming that audiences are familiar with Rachmaninoff’s work. His ‘Prelude’ was one of his best-known pieces, but it still seems likely that only educated audiences would be able to understand the connection between the music and the film. Edgar Allan Poe’s reputation had grown on both sides of the Atlantic since his premature death in 1849, although arguably viewers of Prelude do not need to be overly familiar with his work as excerpts from his story are displayed as intertitles and no further contextual knowledge is required.[1]

Prelude makes the most of a very minimal set and props; Knight, starring as the film’s character, poses as a Victorian man sitting in a chair reading Poe’s story. The story’s themes, along with a rather creepy statuette on the fireplace, and a memento mori cigarette lighter, work on the man’s imagination. As he dozes off, he imagines being buried alive. The funeral procession is conveyed solely through shots of feet and carriage wheels, and silhouettes of a coffin being loaded out of the carriage. The impression of being buried alive is achieved by superimposing an image of the man on the image of the coffin, making the man appear trapped.

Then, Prelude cuts to a close-up of the man’s eyes, and the final intertextual references take place. In the iris of the right eye, images of ‘hell’ are shown – this is actually footage from the immensely popular Swedish ‘horror documentary’ Häxen (‘The Witch’) which was released in 1922. A close-up of the other eye reveals a still image of a soul being borne aloft to Heaven. Unlike the work of Rachmaninoff and Poe, the footage from Häxen is not explicitly named, implying that the viewers are not expected to recognise its source. Instead, Knight appears to have used the footage to save having to stage and shoot a complex hellscape himself.

Footage of Haxan (1922) in Prelude (1927)

The man wakes up and realises that it was simply a nightmare – but the film’s enigmatic return in its final shots to the creepy statuette, representing Death, leaves the audience with a lingering sense of unease. Prelude references Victorian source materials and uses a Victorian setting to create a semi-experimental film. It can be considered as an attempt to translate Victorian (Gothic) horror to the modern medium of cinema. By making its explicit references to other cultural texts, Knight places Prelude in a longer horror tradition. Yet his use of editing, superimposition and unusual lenses means that Prelude incorporates techniques that are unique to the film medium, thus updating the Victorian horror genre and adapting it to a new means of expression.

Prelude remains an oddity – part low-budget horror short, part sophisticated reinterpretation of existing genre conventions. Its intertextual references demand that its audience have a understanding of Victorian cultural texts. It is unclear in which context Knight expected Prelude to be shown; it seems unlikely that it was meant for commercial exhibition and perhaps it primarily served as an artistic expression and his ‘calling card’ to gain a foothold in the industry. Its survival in the archives gives us an additional dimension to our understanding of the interwar British film landscape.

[1] Dudley R. Hutcherson, ‘Poe’s Reputation in England and America, 1850-1909’, American Literature, Vol. 14, no. 3 (1942), 211-233

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The Faithful Heart (1932)

This blog has previously discussed some of the films of Victor Saville, who is mainly remembered for his collaborations with musical comedy star Jessie Matthews. Yet before that collaboration started, Saville had directed over a dozen other films, some of them silent films in the1920s.

In 1932 he directed The Faithful Heart, a melodrama based on a stage play, like so many of the films of the period were. The male lead was played by Herbert Marshall, a famous stage and film star who later in the same year would play husband to Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus. The female lead in The Faithful Heart is played by Marshall’s real-life spouse at the time (he ended up marrying five times) Edna Best. Best also had a significant stage career and in this film plays a dual role as both mother and daughter.

The plot of The Faithful Heart is reasonably simple. In 1899, young sailor Waverley Ango lands in Southampton port and takes a liking to a local barmaid, Grace, who he calls ‘Blackie’. After some persuasion Grace falls in love with Waverley and the pair spend about a week together before Waverley is called up to go to Africa. Despite his promises that he will return to Southampton as soon as possible, Grace knows that his heart is in Africa and she will not see him again.

Then, about a third of the way into the film, the action moves to 1919, with Waverley established in an army career and returning from the front with decorations. He is engaged to Diana, a wealthy and sophisticated woman. Then a young woman called Blackie shows up, who tells him she is Grace’s daughter and that Grace died in childbirth. Waverley understands that he is Blackie’s father, and he feels responsible for helping her. Diana, however, persuades Blackie to emigrate to Canada to join her aunt. When Waverley finds out Blackie is about to travel to Canada, Diana tells him he must choose between them. The film ends with Waverley and Blackie boarding the ship to Canada together.

Under the terms of the BBFC censorship code at the time, films were not allowed to show sexual liaisons. As a result, many films use proxies to insinuated sexual interaction has taken place. In 1929’s Piccadilly, for example, we see a woman giving a man her house key, the two of them entering the house together, and then a close-up shot of the woman reclining on a bed with her hair loose. In Blackmail (also 1929), Hitchcock has two people enter a four-poster bed with the curtains drawn, with the implication that a sexual assault takes place in the bed, unseen by the viewer.

The Faithful Heart is a lot less explicit, to the point that one is left wondering when this baby was conceived. On their first date together, Grace tells Waverley that she has no expectations of him, and she kisses him first. However, we also see that on subsequent nights they go to the theatre every night, and they lodge in a house shared by Blackie’s aunt, cousin and an older male member of the family – hardly an environment that provides a lot of privacy. Yet the audience is asked to accept that the relationship was consummated. This then leads to an insinuated portrayal of extramarital sex, which is not roundly condemned by the film. It partially justifies this by making it clear that Grace and Waverley love each other, and possibly would have married if circumstances had allowed them. Crucially, the film’s ending, with Waverley choosing to ditch Diana in favour of looking after Blackie, re-confirms his commitment to the memory of Grace who is presented as his ‘true’ life partner.

The film’s message of staying true and committed to your first love is particularly ironic in light of the private lives of both Marshall and Best. Marshall, as mentioned above, married five times during his life; Best had a total of three marriages. They had both already been divorced once by the time The Faithful Heart was made. Best’s divorce came through 2 weeks before she married Marshall; Marshall’s own divorce was finalised only 3 days before his marriage to Best. This implies that they both left their first marriages legally intact long after they had decided to live separately from their first spouses. The same pattern repeats for their next marriages, with Best actually marrying her third husband on the day the divorce with Marshall came through.

Clearly, the reality was that it was not that uncommon, particularly in showbiz circles, to have multiple significant relationships in life, and there was no moral imperative to stay with one’s first partner. In The Faithful Heart, Diana, Waverley’s fiancée, also largely acts reasonably. She is not shocked or upset that he has a child from a previous relationship. However, quite understandably, she does want to be sure that he is no longer emotionally committed to Grace. The film gets away with positioning Diana as the ‘bad’ character because throughout the film, she uses her family to try and manipulate Waverley to do things he does not want to do, like live in a luxurious flat or accept an allowance from her father. This builds the pair up as fundamentally incompatible, which is reaffirmed when Diana asks Waverley to give up Blackie – something that goes against his core values.

A final note on the soundtrack, which is unusual in the first part of the film, set in 1899. This section includes many shots of boats and ships in Southampton dock, and much of the soundtrack consists of a male choir singing sea shanties. One particular sequence, when Waverley is waking up with a hangover, is scored by a very whisper-y and somewhat unnerving rendition of ‘Drunken Sailor’. Unlike during the silent film era, when each cinema had its own musicians and the scoring of a film would differ from venue to venue and even from screening to screening, with sound films directors could make creative decisions about the soundtrack as well. Victor Saville had a somewhat unusual approach to the music for this first section of the film, which makes it memorable and showcases Saville’s talent for musical direction which would become much more prominent in his later work.

The Faithful Heart ultimately purports to be a morality tale, but the incident that gets the plot underway has to be fudged because it does not align with what was considered morally acceptable to show on film at the time. It does not necessarily walk this tightrope successfully, leaving audiences to significantly suspend their disbelief while watching this film.

The Faithful Heart is available to watch for free on BFI Player, for viewers based in the UK.

Britannia of Billingsgate (1933)

FeaturedBritannia of Billingsgate (1933)

Britannia of Billingsgate is a reasonably early sound film which provides a critical commentary on the film industry’s shallowness, whilst simultaneously wanting to present a career on screen as aspirational. The film strikes an awkward balance between promoting traditional British values of community and common sense; and foregrounding the glamour of cinema.

At the opening of the film we are introduced to the Bolton family: Bert Bolton is a porter at Billingsgate fish market, whilst his wife Bessie runs a chip shop adjacent to the market. The couple’s young adult children, Pearl and Fred, are obsessed with movies and motorcycles respectively. The Billingsgate community is shown as a warm, Cockney environment where everyone knows and supports everyone else.

Bessie (Violet Lorraine) singing among her regular customers in Britannia of Billingsgate

An Italian director has picked the market as a location for his latest film. Due to a technical mix-up, the film set’s sound recorders accidentally record Bessie singing in her café. The film’s producers are so impressed with the quality of Bessie’s singing that they track her down and offer her a big contract to star in a musical film. Bessie has no interest in an acting career, but her husband and children all want the money that is attached to the offer. Bessie relents and agrees to star in the new film, which will be called Piccadilly Playground.

Whilst Bessie is working on the film, the family move into a luxurious apartment. Bert, Pearl and Fred all start moving in wealthier circles. Bert drinks heavily and starts gambling; Pearl also gambles and tries to ingratiate herself with her favourite film star. Fred secretly pursues his dreams of becoming a motorbike racer – something Bessie is against as she perceives it to be very dangerous.

Bert (Gordon Harker) enjoying the high life in Britannia of Billingsgate

Bessie is the only one not corrupted by the sudden wealth that has befallen the family. She rejects fancy dinners in favour of fish and chips and visits her old café where she engages in a community sing-a-long with the regulars. In this middle section of the film, Britannia of Billingsgate is clear to show that money is leading Bert, Pearl and Fred astray, most notably in a scene where Bert engages in a game of strip poker with a number of younger women. Bessie’s commitment to her roots and her rejection of luxury are clearly presented as commendable.

On the night of Bessie’s film premiere, both Pearl and Fred pretend to be ill. Pearl wants to secretly sneak into the flat of the film star she so admires, in the hopes that her sudden presence in his bedroom will seduce him. Fred plans to take part in a motorcycle race. Bessie and Bert duly head to the film screening alone. Bessie is convinced Piccadilly Plaground will be a terrible flop. In the meantime, Pearl and Fred conduct their own plans, but they are spotted by one of Bessie’s friends and by her butler.

The premiere of Piccadilly Playground in Britannia of Billingsgate

Bessie’s friend comes into the cinema and alerts Bessie that Pearl has gone to the actor’s apartment. Bessie leaves the film screening halfway to confront Pearl, who by that point has been discovered by the actor (who is disgruntled to find this vapid young woman in his bedroom). After Bessie has given Pearl a literal spanking, the party go to the racetrack to find Fred. Seeing Fred win his race makes Bessie change her mind about racing and she becomes supportive. Meanwhile, Piccadilly Playground has proven to be a huge success and the film producers offer Bessie an even bigger contract. Despite her misgivings about wealth and acting, which she has voiced consistently throughout the story so far, Bessie agrees to make another film. At the end of Britannia of Billingsgate we see that the film producers have replicated Bessie’s old fish and chip shop on set, and she records a scene in which she sings with the guests, just like she was doing in ‘real life.’

Like other films of the period, such as Sally in Our Alley (1932) and Say it with Flowers (1934), Britannia of Billingsgate romanticises working class communities and shows the working-class woman as sensible, down-to-earth, and representing British values. Indeed, the film’s title compares Bessie to Britannia herself. Bessie’s rejection of wealth and the make-believe world of film fits entirely within that worldview. Pearl’s obsession with film, expressed through the avid reading of film magazines, cutting out photos of her favourite film star, and her eventual decision to make herself sexually available to this actor, are presented as both silly and morally wrong.

Yet at the film’s end, Bessie agrees to continue as a film actor, even though she appears to have had very little enjoyment out of the role so far. And while Pearl gets punished for her transgression, Fred’s ambitions as a motorcycle racer are ultimately shown to be commendable, inadvertently demonstrating Bessie’s double standard in her attitude to her daughter and son. Like many other films of the period, Britannia of Billingsgate presents a rags-to-riches story, where an ordinary person is catapulted to national fame and wealth. Although this narrative was very popular with audiences, it stood at odds with a traditional class-based society in which everyone supposedly knew their place and the working-classes were expected to work hard and be satisfied with very little. Ultimately, Britannia of Billingsgate tries to have its cake and eat it too: it allowed viewers to dream of being suddenly discovered and made famous; whilst also reaffirming that ultimately, audiences would be best off in the environments in which they were raised.

Britannia of Billingsgate is available to watch for free on BFI Player (for those based in the UK).

The Flying Fool (1931)

FeaturedThe Flying Fool (1931)

Commercial flying was launched in Britain in the aftermath of the First World War. The war had led to both large investments in the production of aircraft, and the training of pilots in the Royal Flying Corps (later RAF). After the end of the war, these ingredients were repurposed to facilitate the roll-out of passenger flights. Before long, aerodromes were established all over the country. The possibility of flight also led to ‘airmindedness’: the adoption of a new state of mind that foregrounded technological advancement, adventure and opportunity. Flying became a popular topic for writers and other artists.[1]

It is not surprising, then, that an early British ‘talkie’ heavily exploited the action potential of airplanes. The Flying Fool was shot and released in 1931 by British International Pictures (BIP), under the direction of Walter Summers. The popularity of showing airplanes on film is demonstrated by the fact that there were two other films by the same title released in the US in 1925 and 1929 respectively. The British film, despite sharing their title, stands completely separately from these American productions. A copy of the BIP film survives, although it has not been released on DVD nor is it easily accessible online.

The hero of The Flying Fool is Vincent, played by Henry Kendall. Kendall was in the RAF during the First World War and was able to do his own flying in the film.[2] Vincent works for the Home Office in an unspecified role. He is on the trail of an international criminal gang, headed up by Michael Marlow. When an American private detective is found dead in Paris, Vincent travels there to unmask Marlow for once and for all. On the way, a young woman played by Benita Hume gets mixed up with Marlow, and assists Vincent when he is captured by the criminals. The film ends with a spectacular air-race back to London, followed by Vincent flying a plane to chase Marlow, in a car, down the rural roads of Kent.

Imperial Airways (the predecessor of British Airways); Air Union (the predecessor of Air France) and De Havilland, an airplane manufacturer, all collaborated in the film’s production. The Flying Fool was made three years after the opening of Croydon International Airport and the airport was heavily used in the film. Although in the film, the airport is called ‘Staveley’ airport, the press around the film’s release refer to the setting as ‘Croydon airport’ and it would be instantly recognisable as such by anyone who had visited Croydon airport.[3]

In the film’s climax, a plane crashes into the airport’s control tower. To achieve this spectacular stunt, Walter Summers arranged for a replica of the airport’s control tower to be built on the studio lot at Elstree. According to Benita Hume, ‘It looked exactly like the real thing. Mr Summers, the director, is a stickler for realism; he spent three weeks ensuring that observant fans should be unable to find any flaws in his Control Tower set.’[4] In the film, this realism is underlined with a rather pompous explanation of the airport’s technological features, including ‘radiotelephony’, by one of the control tower officers.

Cover image advertising The Flying Fool on ‘Boy’s Cinema’ magazine, October 1931

For plane lovers, The Flying Fool offered much to enjoy. An early press release promised that the film would include shots of the new Handley Page 42 plane ‘Hannibal’, which at that point had not yet been taken into public use.[5] The film also used the Argosy plane ‘City of Liverpool’, which would crash in 1933, and one of Air Union’s ‘Rayon D’Or’ planes. In addition, viewers got the opportunity to see inside Croydon airport’s control tower.

The film’s climax sees Vincent and Marion (played by Hume) in a two-seater plane, flying back from France to London whilst being chased by a pair of crooks in another plane. The criminals shoot revolvers at the heroes, but end up crashing into the control tower. Marlow attempts to escape in his car, a fast and luxurious Bentley. Vincent gets back into his plane and chases Marlow down country lanes in a sequence which received praise at the time ‘as one of the most thrilling [chases] anyone can desire.’[6] Ultimately, Marlow crashes his car down a cliff in a shot that seems surprisingly graphic for the time. Vincent and Marion are reunited at the airport where he proposes to her.

Newsreel footage of the crew plane which crashed in a Brixton back garden

The Flying Fool received much press attention during its production, in part due to an on-set accident which saw a plane carrying a pilot and cameraman crash in a back garden in Brixton. Thankfully no-one died, although both the pilot and cameraman were seriously injured.[7] The publicity paid off; upon its opening at the London Pavilion over the August bank holiday weekend in 1931, The Flying Fool was a ‘phenomenal’ box office success.[8] When the film was released more widely to local theatres over the following months, it continued to have significant box office returns.[9]

Despite the film’s box office success and its spectacular and realistic stunts, The Flying Fool has fallen into obscurity. This is a shame, as it is a reasonably rare example of an interwar British action film which includes daring stunts. It also gives viewers a rare opportunity to see moving images of the original interior of Croydon Airport, which closed in 1959, and of the inside of interwar passenger planes. As such, The Flying Fool is both an entertaining action caper and a historical document of the ‘golden age’ of British flying.

[1] Michael McCluskey and Luke Seaber (eds), Aviation in the Literature and Culture of Interwar Britain (London: Palgrave, 2020)

[2] ‘“The Flying Fool”: Ex-R.A.F. Officer as Star in New British film’, Daily Mirror, 31 July 1931, p. 5

[3] ‘London Trade Shows’, Kinematograph Weekly, 30 July 1931, p. 29

[4] Randolph Carroll Burke, ‘The Sartorial Lure of Benita Hume’, Picturegoer, 9 January 1932, p. 12

[5] ‘Summers’ Stunts: Car to go over cliff’, Kinematograph Weekly, 12 February 1931, p. 34

[6] Thomas H Wisdom, ‘Ignorance of “Speed Kings”’, Picturegoer, 10 September 1932, p. 11

[7] ‘B.I.P Plane Crash: Cameraman and Pilot Injured’, Kinematograph Weekly, 5 February 1931, p. 26

[8] ‘Long Shot’, Kinematograph Weekly, 6 August 1931, p. 18

[9] ‘Long Shot’, Kinematograph Weekly, 14 January 1932, p. 16

The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935)

FeaturedThe Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935)

Although rather awkwardly titled and largely forgotten today, the 1935 film The Passing of the Third Floor Back was very popular in Britain upon its release. It draws together two features of the interwar British film industry that have been discussed across various previous posts on this blog. Like, for example, Pygmalion and The Lodger it is based on existing source material. In this instance, this was a short story and play both written by popular writer Jerome K. Jerome before the First World War. The film also draws on high-profile European talent in its director, Berthold Viertel, and its star, Conrad Veidt. This highlights the ongoing international nature of the British film industry between the wars.

Conrad Veidt was a hugely popular and famous German actor with a long career in silent cinema, most notably with lead roles in such classics as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) and Anders als die Anderen (1919), the latter being a landmark of LGBTQ+ silent cinema. In 1933, Veidt left Germany in light of Hitler’s recent assumption of power; as well as him having politically opposing views to the nazi’s, Veidt’s wife was Jewish.[1] Veidt established himself in Britain and made twelve films for British studios until the outbreak of the Second World War. Film historian Sue Harper considers The Passing of the Third Floor Back ‘the apotheosis of [Veidt’s] acting career.’[2]

The film’s director, Berthold Viertel, was an Austrian émigré filmmaker and friend of Veidt’s. After making The Passing of the Third Floor Back, Viertel only made one more film, 1936’s Rhodes of Africa. Like Veidt, Viertel’s political sympathies were left-of-centre, which comes through clearly in their version of The Passing of the Third Floor Back. The short story and play on which the film were based did not foreground class issues in the same way, indicating that these were specifically scripted in for the film. Incidentally, the script of the film was co-written by Alma Reville, Hitchcock’s wife and frequent scriptwriter.

The film’s rather awkward title refers to the room Conrad Veidt’s character, an unnamed Stranger, takes in the boarding house of Mrs Sharpe. At the opening of the film, we see Stasia, the young housemaid, try and grow a flower in the house’s kitchen. She gets scolded by the stern Mrs Sharpe, and frequent allusions are made by both Mrs Sharpe and the other boarding house guests to Stasia’s background as a young ‘delinquent’. Then the Stranger arrives at the door, asking for a room. Mrs Sharpe leads him up to the back of the top floor, presenting him with a tiny room overlooking rooftops. Although Mrs Sharpe is expecting the Stranger to haggle and argue, he instead compliments the room and placidly accepts her terms.

The rest of the film takes place over three days only. On the evening of the Stranger’s arrival, two of the other boarders are due to get engaged. Young and pretty Vivian is entering into this engagement with the odious Mr Wright because it will save her family from financial ruin. In reality, Vivian is in love with a young architect who also lives in the house. During evening dinner, the Stranger stares intently at Vivian, and she decides not to go through with the engagement. Throughout the rest of the evening, the Stranger keeps using this ‘mesmerising’ stare to mentally force people to act in accordance with their true desires. Another boarder, keen to amuse everyone with superficial show tunes on the piano, is convinced to play classical music instead. A conversation the Stranger has with the architect leads the latter to admit that he too is in love with Vivian.

Conrad Veidt as the Stranger, using his ‘mesmerising’ power

The next day is a Bank Holiday Monday, and the Stranger generously offers to take the whole boarding house party out on a steamer to Margate. Mrs Sharpe allows Stasia to come along, and for the first time the servant girl is accepted as a full member of the house party. On the boat, everyone enjoys themselves. The Stranger has a conversation with Miss Kite, one of the lodgers who is ‘the wrong side of thirty’ and very insecure about her looks. When Stasia falls off the steamer, Miss Kite jumps into the water without hesitation to save her. Her conversation with the Stranger has (temporarily) allowed her to stop worrying about her appearance. Miss Kite’s heroic deed earns her the appreciation of the pianist.

Stasia moments before she falls off the steamer in The Passing of the Third Floor Back

Although everyone seems improved by the Stranger’s gentle attentions and insistence on good manners, one man is not impressed. Wright, who got spurned by Vivian, is a rich man who profits off slum housing. Having lost Vivian, he makes it clear to the Stranger that evening that he will do everything he can to swing the pendulum of change the other way. He explicitly addresses how the Stranger has influenced everyone to ‘do good’, and how he will remind everyone of their baser emotions. Indeed, the next morning, Wright’s influence leads to quarrels and frustrations across the house. People appear to have forgotten what kindness and politeness can do to make everyone’s life more pleasant.

Wright confronts the Stranger in The Passing of the Third Floor Back

At the end of that day, a burglar kills Wright. Initially, the house blame Stasia; then the Stranger. Their mob mentality, once its revealed they were wrongfully accusing their peers, provides a wake-up call to the Stranger’s kindness. He leaves the house, satisfied that he has now made a lasting impact on the lodgers’ worldviews.

Throughout, the Stranger is quite clearly analogous to a Christ-like figure, advocating kindness in every action. Wright appears to be set up as a sort of Lucifer, and the discussion between Wright and the Stranger tantalisingly suggests that Wright ‘recognises’ the Stranger and the two have been at odds before. Yet the film grounds these Christian analogies in practical class-based discussions, particularly by making Wright a profiteering landlord. Although the religious undertones make The Passing of the Third Floor Back a somewhat dated and unfamiliar viewing experience for modern audiences, its social commentary (unfortunately) still feels very relevant.

The Passing of the Third Floor Back can be viewed on YouTube; the short story on which the film is based can be read here.

[1] Sue Harper, ‘Thinking Forward and Up: The British films of Conrad Veidt’, in The Unknown 1930s: An alternative history of the British cinema, 1929-1939, ed. Jeffrey Richards (London: IB Tauris, 2000), 121-137 (p. 122)

[2] Ibid., p. 132