The Squeaker (1937)

Today’s post is going to discuss another Edgar Wallace adaptation, as so many of his works were turned into films in interwar Britain. The Squeaker, also known as Murder on Diamond Row in the US, was made in 1937. The novel on which it is based was published ten years’ prior, in 1927. Wallace himself died in 1932 so although he is credited as a co-writer on the film, he had no active involvement in its production.

The Squeaker is directed by William K Howard, and American who came to Britain in 1937 to work for the – then already famous – producer Alexander Korda. The Squeaker was their first collaboration. The American link may be the reason why this film got more exposure in the US than most British interwar products; according to the film’s IMDb page, The Squeaker got broadcast on a number of regional US TV stations in a six-month period in 1948-1949, as part of a syndicated broadcast package.

The story of The Squeaker has all the elements of a British interwar crime story. There are criminals, police officers, journalists, and nightclub performers. Larry Graeme is a small-time jewellery thief. He sells his stolen goods on to a mysterious man known as ‘the Squeaker’. The Squeaker extorts his criminal suppliers; he offers a bad price for their goods but if they refuse him, he betrays them to the police. Larry is in love with the beautiful nightclub performer Tamara. Scotland Yard are after the Squeaker and the hard-drinking, gruff Inspector Barrabal goes undercover to investigate. Barrabal is friends with the journalist Joshua Collie, a crime reporter.

When Larry steals some valuable pearls and refuses to sell them on to the Squeaker, the latter makes sure Larry gets arrested. Larry escapes; the film’s climax takes place at a society party thrown by the affable businessman Sutton. Larry dies at the party; Barrabal gets accused of being the murderer. He however has realised that Sutton is the Squeaker and Larry’s killer, and the film ends in Sutton’s arrest and confession.

Contemporary reviewers have found the original novel uneven, hard to follow and poorly paced. Nevertheless, there have been no fewer than four film adaptations of the story. The first was made in Britain in 1930 and directed by Wallace himself. This version appears to stay close to the source material. A German film was made in the following year; and the Germans had another stab at it in 1963. (The popularity of Edgar Wallace adaptations in Germany is perhaps material for another post.)

The 1937 adaptation under consideration here is the only one who makes changes to the original novel. The biggest change is the addition of Tamara the nightclub dancer, whose character does not appear in either the source material or any of the other adaptations. In the film, Tamara’s nightclub performances are shown several times and at length. The inclusion of female nightclub dancers in films was a common trope in interwar British films, and they gave audiences an opportunity to enjoy the spectacle of the female body.

By introducing a nightclub dancer as a character, The Squeaker also opens up the nightclub space as one of the main sites of action in the film. The fictional club in the film is called the ‘Leopard Club’, and it is presented as a popular and high-end entertainment venue. However, the club is also the space where Larry can meet with Tamara. The film does not show the criminal Larry as being able to navigate any other public space, but in the nightclub he blends in with ease. In fact, the doormen of the club are shown to know Larry and greet him warmly when he arrives. The implication is clear: although the nightclub can be a fun space of entertainment and spectacle, it is also assumed to be a space on the margins of acceptable society, where criminals mix with non-criminal people.

Inspector Barrabal also moves in and out of the nightclub throughout the film, and easily builds rapport with Tamara. He is present at the club at the same time as Larry but makes no moves to arrest him; the nightclub’s status as a space almost outside of conventional frameworks, where everyone can mingle, is further underscored. The film later reveals that the inspector and the criminal know one another pretty well; they are sufficiently close that Barrabal can visit Larry in his apartment. The detective inspector is shown as someone who has to be able to build relationships of trust with anyone, and who plays the ‘long game’ in order to uncover a criminal plot.

Barrabal’s relationship with the journalist Joshua Collie does not quite have the same power dynamic as real-life 1930s journalists would liked audiences to have believed. Whereas real-life reporters liked to present themselves as indispensable to the police, because they could give them tips on live investigations, in The Squeaker the flow of information goes in the other direction.

Collie is unlike most cinematic journalists: rather than the stereotypical hard-nosed, ambitious hack, he is a fairly lazy man who rates his domestic comforts more highly than any professional success. In the film, Collie nearly gets fired by his editor because he is not chasing the Squeaker story as hard as reporters at other newspapers. However, Barrabal feeds him inside information from the investigation which allows Collie to impress his editor and save his job.

The purpose of Collie to Barrabal is not made very clear, yet Collie remains part of the action and is present at the film’s climax when Larry gets killed. There is a sense that by 1937, the crime reporter was considered such a staple part of the detective story that Collie’s character exists almost by default. He is there to complete the set of expected elements in the crime story; but his character is much less heroic or instrumental to the resolution of criminal cases than 1930s journalists liked to imagine themselves.

The 1937 film of The Squeaker does not feel uneven or poorly paced like readers have found the original novel. It is, however, difficult to find anything particularly objectionable in The Squeaker, but equally there are no original elements that make the film memorable. There is a sense that by the late 1930s, British crime films were becoming so formulaic that filmmakers did not even question whether all the characters and elements were strictly necessary to the plot.

Autobiography of an interwar journalist

JC (John Clucas) Cannell was a man of two, seemingly completely separate, careers. He was a Fleet Street journalist, but also a magician. In that latter capacity he became vice-president of The Magician’s Club. After his fellow (and more illustrious) Club member Harry Houdini died in 1926, Cannell wrote the book-length The Secrets of Houdini (1931)[1] which painstakingly explains exactly how each of Houdini’s famous tricks worked. In 1935 Cannell collaborated with Quaker Oats to distribute to Quaker customers copies of The Master Book of Magic[2]; again a book which explained how magic tricks worked.

Sources that relate to Cannell’s work as a magician are silent about his other career as a Fleet Street journalist. Yet the books Cannell wrote about magic show his reporting appetite. He was driven to lift the curtain on how magic worked; a stance that his fellow magicians did not necessarily appreciate. Cannell’s instinct to reveal the ‘truth’ to his readers would have served him well as a tabloid journalist in interwar London.

Aside from his books on magic, JC Cannell also wrote an autobiographical account of his work as a reporter: When Fleet Street Calls.[3] This book, which unfortunately has not been reprinted since its first issue, not only gives insight to journalism practices of the period but also to how journalists wanted to present themselves. In the 1930s British tabloid newspapers were in stiff competition with one another, and all tried to increase their circulation.

This decade also saw the launch of the first university-level course on journalism, at the University of London.[4] There was ongoing public debate about the training and education of journalists. Traditionally most journalists had no formal qualifications but learnt on the job, usually starting out as teenagers on local and provincial papers before making the move to Fleet Street in their 20s. This group of journalists commonly stated that university graduates did not have enough ‘real-life experience’ to be good journalists. The counterargument was that journalists had a duty to explain increasingly complex political, technological and scientific news to their readers; and that without a formal education journalists would not be able to understand the topics they were reporting on.

Cannell’s autobiography is published in the midst of these discussions. In it, he builds a very specific picture of the job and the type of person suited to it. It is an early example of the mythologising of the journalist, that has been expanded on by many subsequent books and films.

For example, Cannell states authoritatively:

“In no profession are contrasts so swift and strange, or is life more full of the unexpected than in that of Fleet Street journalism.”[5]

And

“Because Fleet Street journalism is so unlike every other profession or occupation, the people who follow it are totally different from, may I say, the normal folk.”[6]

His argument is clear: journalism is a very varied job, and not everyone is cut out for it. The role’s fast pace requires stamina and wits. Cannell also implies that whether someone is ‘cut out’ to be a journalist is innate; you either are the right type of person or you are not. A university degree in the subject would not make any difference if you are part of the ‘normal folk’ who are not able to grapple with the challenges of the job.

A bit later on, Cannell addresses the arguments about journalists’ supposed lack of formal education, more head-on:

“There is at least as much culture and accomplishment per head in journalism as in any other of the professions, and the journalist has an additional advantage of more worldly knowledge and shrewdness than the others, apart from, I think I may say, the law.”[7]

The foregrounding here of ‘worldly knowledge and shrewdness’ again plays against the popular stereotype of the educated man as ‘bookish’; it evokes notions of journalists being scrappy and surviving on their wits.

The final part of the above quote concedes some respect only to those enforcing law and order, the most visible exponents of which were police. Cannell considers journalists and police officers as partners, with both groups contributing complimentary skills that allow criminals to be arrested. He describes reporting on a murder story, and going to visit the suspect’s family. Whilst Cannell is in their neighbourhood, he actually spots the main suspect:

“I was bound to inform the police that I had seen the wanted man. (…) The police are well aware that they cannot ignore the Press in their fight against crime, and I know of many cases in which detectives of national repute have asked the opinion of journalists covering a big murder story.”[8]

It is clear that in Cannell’s view journalists, like everyone else, had a duty to respect the rule of law. However, he also makes it clear that in his opinion, the police would not get very far without assistance from journalists. Although it is no doubt true that journalists occasionally provided the police with tips and information, the same happened in the other direction. The police were able to use the press to their advantage when they needed information, such as the description of a suspect, to be distributed quickly. The relationship between police and journalists was more symbiotic than Cannell wants to make it appear. He prefers a more macho representation in which even the police are dependent on the tough journalist to give them clues.

It unfortunately goes almost without saying that Cannell’s ideal, imagined journalist is indisputably male. Although women had worked in British journalism since the Victorian times, and their numbers increased steadily in the run-up to the Second World War, Cannell does not acknowledge their existence at all. Cannell’s description of his job implies that it is unsuitable for women; for example, he boasts that when King George V was seriously ill in 1928, Cannell spent eight nights outside Buckingham Palace, waiting for news.[9] He also describes that journalists can receive a call from their editor any time of the day or night that requires them to stop what they are doing and pursue a story.[10] These working conditions were simply not safe or feasible for women, particularly if they had caring responsibilities.

JC Cannell’s autobiography not only gives insight to the working conditions of tabloid journalists in the interwar period; it also shows how journalists of that period wanted to present the profession. He describes journalism as a challenging job, one that only those with natural aptitude are able to succeed at. Cannell also presents journalism as an essential part of the law enforcement apparatus, to give the profession more legitimacy. When Fleet Street Calls purports to reveal to the reader the inner workings of tabloid journalism, in the same way that Cannell’s magic books revealed the workings of magic tricks. However, in reality the journalism book rather reveals to the reader contemporary attempts to shape the image of journalism in the public imagination.

[1] JC Cannell, The Secrets of Houdini (London: Hutchinson & Son, 1931). The book was re-issued in 1973 by Dover Publications in New York – that version is still readily available for purchase.

[2] JC Cannell, The Master Book of Magic (London: Quaker Oats Ltd, 1935). Second-hand copies of this book are also available online.

[3] JC Cannell, When Fleet Street Calls: being the experiences of a London journalist (London: Jarrolds ltd, 1932)

[4] Political and Economic Planning. Report on the British Press: a survey of its current operations and problems with special reference to national newspapers and their part in public affairs (London: PEP, 1938), p. 14

[5] Cannell, When Fleet Street Calls, p. 92

[6] Ibid., p. 200

[7] Ibid., p. 201

[8] Ibid., p. 177

[9] Ibid., p. 140

[10] Ibid., p. 100

Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930-1940)

E.M. Delafield wrote four instalments of the Diary of a Provincial Lady, which were published in book-form in 1930; 1932; 1934 and 1940. The book started out as a weekly serial in Time and Tide magazine. As the title suggests, the books are fictionalised diary entries by an unnamed, upper-class woman who lives in Devon with her husband Robert and children Robin and Vicky. The books get a lot of their comic mileage out of the Provincial Lady’s attempts to keep her family afloat and keep up appearances whilst feeling decidedly out of her depth.

The characters are loosely based on Delafield and her own family, and the Provincial Lady becomes a writer like Delafield. In the first instalment the Provincial Lady writes a book which is well received, and which leads the character to become increasingly invested in her writing career.

Whilst a large part of the books is set in rural Devonshire, at choice moments the Provincial Lady visits London. This increasingly happens in the second instalment, The Provincial Lady Goes Further, when the protagonist rents a small flat in London as a base for her to focus on her writing. Throughout the books, London is presented in a very specific manner. It is not ever negative; there is no sense of the ‘country’ being superior over the city. Rather, London offers the Provincial Lady different opportunities and activities that broaden her horizons.

From the start, the Provincial Lady’s London life is largely coordinated by her friend Rose (or ‘dear Rose’ as she’s often referred to) whom the Provincial Lady knows from her ‘Hampstead days’, which were evidentially before her marriage to Robert. Rose remains unmarried and lives in a flat in London when not travelling abroad. From the outset, the Provincial Lady’s trips to stay with Rose in London are marked by recurring activities: shopping; attending beauty salons; visiting the theatre; and attending ‘Literary Parties’.

Early on in the first novel, Rose takes the Provincial Lady to a ‘Literary Club dinner’:

‘Am much struck by various young men who have defiantly put on flannel shirts and no ties, and brushed their hair up on end. They are mostly accompanied by red-headed young women who wear printed crêpe frocks and beads.’[1]

This passage immediately encapsulates both the appeal of London to the Provincial Lady, where she can mix with a wider range of people than in Devon; and the distance between her own life and that of the ‘literary crowds’ in London. The gentle mocking of London’s literary society continues throughout the novels even when the Provincial Lady herself becomes a successful author; her continued base in Devon ensures that she never feels fully part of the ‘smart set’. Indeed this is made explicit in The Provincial Lady Goes Further, when she attends another literary party where a friend gives her the details on other attendees:

‘Emma gives me rapid outline of many rather lurid careers, leading me to conclusion that literary ability and domestic success not usually compatible. (Query: Will this invalidate my chances?’[2]

The diaries are self-aware about the stereotypes that existed about both London and writers. Delafield on the one hand gives credence to the belief that writers must be based in London, by giving her character a Bloomsbury flat to write from. On the other hand, she challenges the notion that writers must be eccentric or have unconventional personal lives in order to be successful. Indeed, later on in The Provincial Lady Goes Further she finds that the constant stream of Literary Parties is keeping her from doing any writing at all. Because the Provincial Lady is always able – indeed, required – to return to Devon to deal with domestic concerns, she never gets sucked into the fast and bright life in London. Literary circles are shown to be fun but also shallow and self-centred.

Not everything about London is presented as trivial, however; the capital also allows the Provincial Lady to engage with culture in a way not available to her in Devon. Rose frequently takes her to theatre shows, although these also become an opportunity to show off one’s sophistication:

‘We go to see Charles Laughton in Payment Deferred, and am confirmed in previous opinion that he is the most intelligent actor I have ever seen in my life. Rose says, On the English stage, in cosmopolitan manner, and I say ‘Yes, yes’, very thoughtfully’[3]

London is also a place where the Provincial Lady can nurture a part of herself that gets neglected in Devon. Almost every time the Provincial Lady visits the capital, she makes sure to go to a hairdresser or beauty parlour, and to buy some new clothes. These visits are accompanied by apprehension and guilt at the expense, but ultimately they increase the Provincial Lady’s confidence. After a ‘very, very painful’ time at a beauty parlour:

‘Eventually emerge more or less unrecognisable, and greatly improved.’[4]

Similarly, after a visit to the hairdresser’s:

‘Undergo permanent wave, with customary interludes of feeling that nothing on earth can be worth it, and eventual conviction that it was. (…) am told that I look fifteen years younger – which leaves me wondering what on earth I could have looked like before, and how long I have been looking it.’[5]

In London, the Provincial Lady can spend time and money on her appearance, without being stopped by the thought that this is frivolous or a waste of money. When she’s in Devon, she is scrupulously careful with money and puts household and family expenses before her own. In London, she reclaims some of her own identity separate from her roles as wife and mother. This culminates in her taking out the rent on a flat in Doughy Street, Bloomsbury, under the encouragement of Rose.

This becomes her ‘room of ones own’ where she can write; although in true Provincial Lady fashion the diaries make more of the domestic and social concerns that the flat commits her to, than the writing she is able to produce in it. Yet throughout the series the Provincial Lady gains increasing literary success, quietly and committedly working away at something that gives her more space and time for herself.

By the end of the third book, there is not so much difference between her life and that of ‘dear Rose’, who she initially held in such awe and admiration. They can both hold their own at Literary Parties, they both travel and have acquaintances all over the world. London has given the Provincial Lady the opportunities to build this life for herself; the city allows her to assert her own identity as an individual and to meet a much wider range of people than she sees in Devon. For the Provincial Lady, it is not a matter of town versus country, but rather of balancing both.

[1] E.M. Delafield, Diary of a Provincial Lady (London: Penguin, 2013), p. 27

[2] Ibid., p. 186

[3] Ibid, pp. 138-139

[4] Ibid., p. 51

[5] Ibid. p. 140

Miles Mander

Miles Mander was a film actor and director in interwar Britain, whose legacy was somewhat forgotten until the BFI restored his directorial debut feature The First Born (1928) in 2011. Anyone who has seen Mander on screen is unlikely to forget it; his features – which have earned him the description of a ‘character actor’ on his Wikipedia page – are not those of the square-jawed, chiselled romantic hero. Instead there is usually a hint of untrustworthiness to his performances, a slyness that gives the viewer pause. Directors used this ambiguity when casting Mander in roles as the emotionally manipulative antagonist.

Mander was born in Wolverhampton in 1888 to a prominent local family. His brother Geoffrey became a Liberal MP for Wolverhampton in 1929. As an MP, Geoffrey played a prominent role in film censorship debates in the 1930s, passionately arguing against the implementation of a strict, state-run censorship body on the premise that that would unduly infringe on the right to freedom of expression.[1] The potential conflict of interest of an MP influencing legislation that would directly impact his brother’s career appears not to have been a concern.

Miles Mander attended the prestigious public school in Harrow in line with the family tradition, but in his twenties he decided to take a different path. He spent some time in New Zealand as a sheep farmer and learnt how to fly planes – during the Great War he served in the Air Auxiliary Corps.[2] He was first married to the daughter of a Maharaja; in 1923 he married a second time to an Australian woman, Kathleen French. In 1925 she starred alongside him in an Adrian Brunel-directed comedy short where she was billed as ‘Mrs Miles Mander’ – but this appears to have been the extent of her acting career. Kathleen and Miles had a son, Theodore, who starred as the son of Mander’s character in The First Born.

Mander started his acting career in the 1920s, and he was able to use his colourful life experience up until that point in his work. As noted above, early on in his career he collaborated with fellow old Harrovian, director Adrian Brunel – Mander produced Brunel’s first feature film The Man Without Desire (1923). In 1925, Mander was cast in a lead role in Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature, The Pleasure Garden.

In this role, Mander could draw on the experiences he had in his twenties, living abroad. His character, Levet, becomes romantically involved with a British woman, Patsy, in London and convinces her to marry him. Shortly after the marriage, Levet has to move to Africa for work. After a while, Patsy hears that Levet has been very ill, so she decides to travel to Africa to look after him. When she arrives, however, she finds out that Levet has entered into a relationship with a local woman, who was unaware that he was married. The local woman (who is only known as ‘Native Girl’ and who does not appear on the film’s credits) becomes understandably upset with Levet; the argument culminates with Levet drowning the woman in the sea. Levet becomes wrecked with guilt and paranoia and becomes convinced that he must murder Patsy, too, in order to find peace. Before he can follow through with it, he himself is shot dead. Levet’s overall part in The Pleasure Garden is actually relatively minor; the scenes in Africa all take place in the final five minutes of the film. For most of the film’s running time Mander is not on screen, but this early role sets the tone of his later parts.

After The Pleasure Garden Mander took on some more acting roles, playing the part of upper-class British gentlemen. He also spent some time in Germany where he acted in about half a dozen films in 1927 and 1928. In 1928 however, he tried his hand at directing himself, for the first time. The result was The First Born, in which Mander also played the protagonist, Sir Hugo Boycott. The world of The First Born is one which Mander was familiar with through his family’s background: Sir Hugo is an aspiring MP and the film’s climax takes place on election night.

The First Born is a melodrama: Sir Hugo is married to Madeleine, but the couple are unable to conceive a son and heir. Madeleine becomes increasingly desperate and considers having an affair with a friend in order to get pregnant, and pass the baby off as Hugo’s. Eventually Madeleine has a son; the audience is kept in the dark as to his parentage. Hugo, in the meantime, is having an extramarital affair. On election night, Hugo and his mistress have an argument in the corridor of her apartment building; in the midst of it, Hugo stumbles and falls to his death down the lift shaft. In an ironic twist, is revealed to the audience that Madeleine’s son was Hugo’s, after all.

In The First Born Mander cast himself in the role of an unpleasant, privileged man; the audience’s sympathies are squarely with Madeleine. Mander apparently had no desire to present himself as the romantic hero, instead opting for a role with complexity. After The First Born Mander directed another five features, but he never cast himself in them again. He did continue to act in others’ films, for example playing an older, wealthy man who attempts to break up a young romance in Bitter Sweet (1933); taking the part of the sly private secretary Wriothesley in Korda’s Private Life of Henry VIII (1933); playing the rival race driver to the hero in Death Drives Through (1935); and portraying King Louie XIII in The Three Musketeers (1935).

Mander directed his last feature, The Flying Doctor, in 1936, after which he made the move to Hollywood. In his first American film, Lloyds of London, he acted alongside Madeleine Carroll, who he had given her big break in The First Born (and also cast in his third feature, Fascination). He continued to find opportunity to play British roles in American films, such as playing Benjamin Disraeli in Suez (1938) and acting alongside Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier in a US production of Wuthering Heights (1939). The Three Musketeers story also continued to give him employment; he appeared as Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers (1939) and as Aramis in The Man in the Iron Mask later that same year. Mander continued to act in films until his unexpected death in 1946.

On the one hand, Miles Mander’s career is unusual; particularly in his early career he had a wide range of interests and seemed reluctant to follow a set career path. On the other hand, his family background and education ensured he had access to great connections; aside from Adrian Brunel and Alfred Hitchcock, he also worked closely with Leslie Howard, A.A. Milne, Ivor Novello, and other familiar names. Ultimately, Mander’s career shows that even in an industry as new and dynamic as the film industry in the 1920s, coming from an established family background did have its advantages.

[1] Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in 1930s Britain (London: IB Tauris, 2010), pp. 92-96

[2] ‘The First Born (1928) dir. Miles Mander: Rediscovery of a stunning late 1920s melodrama’, British Film Institute. Accessed 20 February 2021.

Grace Blackaller

Grace Blackaller was born in 1909 and murdered on 9 April 1925. She was a sixteen-year-old amateur dancer who loved going to the cinema. Her murderer was her boyfriend, Ernest Rhodes, aged nineteen. Grace’s murder provided tabloid fodder for about two weeks in April 1925 and has since been completely forgotten.[1] The murder of women by their partners sadly remains so commonplace that it is still treated as ‘normal’. In Grace’s case, newspapers were also quick to suggest her own behaviour was somehow at fault.

The newspaper reports immediately after the murder, which are reasonably sympathetic to Grace, hint at a family set-up that is not straightforward. Grace lived in a lodging in Nevern Square, a few minutes from Earls’ Court tube station; according to her landlady she had lived there for four years so since they age of 12.[2] Her mother, however, lived on Challoner Street, which is on the other side of Warwick Road near West Kensington tube. Both locations are about a 15- minute walk apart.

It was on the corner of Challoner Street that Grace was attacked on that Thursday evening. She managed to get to her mother’s doorstep where ‘Her mother found her on the doorstep of her flat with a wound in her throat. Miss Blackaller could only mumble “a man attacked me” and died in hospital without revealing the secret of her murderer’s identity or any detail of the attack.”[3]

The mystery of the attack was sufficient for a number of tabloids to give the story front-page news, and to include a picture of Grace with the reports as well. Grace’s landlady told the Daily Mirror that Grace was working as a dressmaker and a dance teacher, and although ‘she went out a great deal at night to dances and things’ this was ‘like most girls these days’ and Grace had ‘never seen (…) with a boy.’[4] The Express printed a similar line, that ‘Miss Blackaller was not known to be on friendly terms with any particular man.’[5] In these initial reports, when it is assumed that the attack was conducted by a random stranger, Grace’s behaviour is represented as normal for the period and no moral judgements are made about her.

Grace Blackaller,
Daily Mirror, 11 April 1925, front page

The newspapers only changed their tune about Grace when the story developed further, and a murderer came forward. Press reports no longer presented Grace as a wholesome girl who had fallen victim to a random attack when it became apparent that Grace had been killed by her boyfriend, Ernest. Ernest turned himself in to the police on 11 April, when he read in the newspaper that Grace had died – he claimed that he had thought he only injured her.[6]

According to his account, on the 9^th of April the couple went to the Blue Hall Cinema in Ravenscourt Park. They got back to West Kensington at about 11pm, and Ernest walked Grace home. Ernest thought his girlfriend had been stringing him along, and he suspected her of seeing other boys. When she did not take his concerns seriously, he took a razor from his pocket and slashed her throat while they were kissing.

This revelation changed the press’s coverage of the case. Sympathy for the ‘pretty young dancer who was fond of gaiety’ gave way to concerns about young girls’ ‘double lives.’[7] At the final day of the inquest, the coroner read out a letter he had received from a concerned citizen. According to the coroner, the letter expressed ‘common-sense views,’ including the notion that girl murder victims ‘were forward minxes and made advances to young men, stayed out late at night, frequented cinemas and dance places, and had evidently been allowed to run loose.’[8] Suddenly, the previous reports that Grace’s interests in dancing and cinema were normal for girls her age, were inverted to suggest that the fact that these habits were normal was an indication of a moral and social problem.

The text of the letter was uncritically reprinted in several daily newspapers. The Director of the Liverpool Women’s Patrol stated publicly that she agreed with the letter-writer’s assessment of young girls’ lives.[9] The coroner’s decision to read out this letter during the inquest demonstrates that it was accepted that he would have an opinion on the moral aspects of the case as well as on forensic facts.

The opinion of a single member of the public was presented by the coroner as the belief of the general public, and its subsequent endorsement by the conservative press cemented it as the commonly held view. According to a contemporary journalism trade journal, voicing concerns about the modern girl sold newspapers in the interwar period the way a sensational murder sold them before the First World War. [10] In the reporting on Grace Blakaller, the popular press had managed to combine both ingredients into a successful multi-part story which reaffirmed that it was safer for a woman to stay at home and not have romantic relationships.

To further demonstrate how deeply the narrative that Grace was at fault for her own plight was embedded, these were Ernest Rhodes’ lawyer’s comments when Rhodes was committed for trial: ‘without eliminating the question of provocation, (…) my defence will be – and I shall call on the highest medical evidence to support it – that he [Rhodes] did not know the nature and quality of the act or that, if he did know, he did not know he was doing wrong.’[11]

In other words, the first line of defence was that Grace provoked Ernest, which, it was implied, would diminish his culpability. The second line was that Rhodes did not know that running a razor across someone’s throat could lead to that person dying; and the third line was that Rhodes did not realise that committing an act of violence was wrong. It was this final argument that would be successful; Rhodes was committed to an asylum rather than prison and was released for good behaviour in 1933.

Again, the press reporting partially paved the way for this, as Rhodes was described as ‘a boy with rather a lot of peculiarities’ who was ‘constantly talking about Norman Thorne’ – a young man who had killed his girlfriend in December 1924 and who was awaiting his execution in April 1925.[12] Obsession with a killer was presented as a sign of insanity which, in combination with the narrative that had been constructed around Grace’s ‘provocative’ lifestyle, allowed Rhodes’ legal counsel to mount a successful defence. The daily press was instrumental in influencing the public’s opinion about this case which limited public sympathy for Grace and painted her as culpable for her own murder.

You can read more about Grace Blackaller in my book, Interwar London after Dark in British Popular Culture.

[1] Except by amateur historians and true crime enthusiasts who have pored over the story on internet fora

[2] ‘Murdered Girl: Woman’s Story’, Daily Mirror, 11 April 1925, p. 15

[3] ‘Dance Girl Murdered in London’, Daily Express, 11 April 1925, p. 1

[4] ‘Murdered Girl: Woman’s Story’

[5] ‘Girl Murdered in London’, Daily Express, 11 April 1925, p. 7

[6] ‘Dead Girl Dancer: Story of Youth’s Written Confession’, Daily Mirror, 14 April 1925, p. 2

[7] ‘Murdered Girl: Woman’s Story’; ‘Double-Life Girls’, Daily Express, 23 April 1925, p. 2

[8] ‘Dancing Girl’s Death’, The Times, 23 April 1925, p. 14; ‘Dead Dancer: Boy For Trial’, Daily Mirror, 23 April 1925, p. 21; ‘Double-Life Girls’.

[9] ‘Girls’ Double Lives’, Daily Mirror, 24 April 1925, p. 2

[10] Newspaper World, April 1927, as quoted in Adrian Bingham, Gender, Modernity, and the Popular Press in Inter-War Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 48

[11] ‘Dance Girl Drama’, Daily Mirror, 29 April 1925, p. 2

[12] Ibid.

The Dark Eyes Of London (1939)

One of the more popular genres of literature in interwar London was crime fiction, and one writer became synonymous with London crime stories of this period: Edgar Wallace. Wallace was a born and bred Londoner who worked as a journalist before becoming a full-time fiction writer. At the end of his life he moved to Hollywood to write for the talking pictures. Wallace wrote over 175 books, a number of which were adapted for the screen.[i]

The consumption of written fiction experienced a boom in interwar Britain due to a convergence of several factors. Levels of literacy increased as a consequence of the 1918 Education Act which raised the school leaving age to 14. Penguin books costing sixpence each were first printed in 1935. Improved working conditions and legislation generally led to people having more leisure time in which to read; and reading became a common activity on the daily commute.

Wallace published the novel The Dark Eyes of London in 1924. In the story, Inspector Holt of Scotland Yard is approached by a young lady, Diana. Diana suspects that her wealthy father has been murdered for his life insurance money, on the orders of a criminal who pretends to run a charity home for the blind. The story was turned into a film in 1939, under the direction of the experienced Walter Summers. Although Wallace is credited as a co-writer, he passed away in 1932, so had no active involvement in the film’s production

The film version of The Dark Eyes of London is notably heavier on the horror elements than the original story. The murders of the old men are undertaken by one of the criminal’s henchmen, Jake, who is ‘disfigured’ and appears as a semi-Frankenstein’s Monster. The film was released in the US under the title The Human Monster, to further underscore the body-horror elements. In the UK it was awarded a rare ‘H’ certificate by the BBFC which restricted its audience to those aged 16 and above. Most notably, the criminal mastermind is played by legendary horror actor Bela Lugosi, in a rare appearance in a British feature.

The Dark Eyes of London was shot at Welwyn Studios, a small studio in the new Garden City which was explicitly designated for the production of thrillers and second features (ie features shown as part of a cinema programme but not expected to be the main attraction).[ii] Walter Summers was no stranger to bringing the horror atmosphere to film.[iii] In short, The Dark Eyes of London had all the ingredients to become a British exponent of the pulp horror genre; and the finished product leans into this heavily.

Its genre tropes serve to obscure the underlying xenophobia and ableism on which the film’s story is reliant. Lugosi’s character is called Dr Orloff; a name clearly intended to signal an unspecified Eastern European descent. In Wallace’s original story the equivalent character is called John Dearborn. Like many British interwar films, the criminal element is marked as foreign, reflecting increased anti-foreign sentiments that circulated in the run-up to the Second World War. The threat Orloff brings to the British nation is signalled right from the film’s opening, when his eyes are superimposed over a shot of Tower Bridge. At the end of the film the foreign threat is neutralised and the union of the British couple, Inspector Holt and Diana, is celebrated.

The opening of *The Dark Eyes of London*

The treatment of disability in The Dark Eyes of London is even more explicitly problematic. Two types of disability are shown in the film: Jake, Dr Orloff’s henchman, has unspecified ‘deformity’; and Dr Orloff himself pretends to be blind. Jake’s appearance is intended to horrify the audience, with fake teeth, rolled-back eyes and a hunchback. He is also mute and his level of intelligence is left unspecified. He is possibly the ‘Human Monster’ to which the US title of the film refers – he certainly features prominently on the film’s poster.[iv] Jake is the one who commits the murders on Orloff’s direction; he is presented as having no free will and no understanding of right or wrong. At the film’s climax Jake turns on his master and kills Orloff before conveniently dying himself.

Introduction of Jake in *The Dark Eyes of London*

There are clear echoes of Frankenstein and his Monster here, but without the nuanced consideration of free will and agency of that novel, The Dark Eyes of London simply reduces Jake to a spectacle. His appearance bears no relation to real-life disability. The other characters variously treat Jake like a servant, animal, or child, reinforcing a narrative that those with a physical appearance that deviates from the norm do not need to be treated like equals.

The depiction of blindness in The Dark Eyes of London is markedly different. Orloff pretends to be blind to escape suspicion from the police, as blind people are assumed to be severely limited in their mobility and therefore unable to conduct criminal activity. The film’s plot heavily leans on the use of braille as a way of transferring covert and criminal messages. This is presumably the reason why Wallace chose for his criminal mastermind to be running a home for the blind. The blind are depicted as being separate from the rest of society, in their own community that cannot be penetrated and that may be devious. Although Orloff’s pretend-blindness is condemned because he uses it to evade criminal investigation, it is not treated as morally objectionable.

Had it not been for Lugosi, who continues to have a dedicated fanbase, The Dark Eyes of London would likely have been forgotten. It uses horror genre tropes which allows the audience to put it in the same bracket as other B horror films from both sides of the Atlantic. However, these generic conventions hide underlying assumptions about which kind of people are the heroes (white, British, able-bodied) and which kind are villains (foreign, disabled). Some of these generic elements were specifically introduced in the film adaptation of the story, reflecting both the increasingly anti-foreign sentiments in the late-1930s and problematic visual cues used in cinema of the period, more generally.

The Dark Eyes of London is available in full on YouTube.

[i] According to Jeffrey Richards, 33 of Wallace’s books were turned into films in the 1930s alone. Jeffrey Richards, Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in 1930s Britain (London: IB Tauris, 2010), p. 254

[ii] Steve Chibnall, Quota Quickies; The Birth of the British ‘B’ Film (London: BFI, 2007), pp. 26-27

[iii] Ibid., p. 100.

[iv] Bela Lugosi is not pictured on the US poster at all despite having top billing.

Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion technically originated prior to the Great War, but it continued to appear on the West End throughout the interwar period. Indeed, its impact has lasted throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Shaw’s play continues to be regularly performed in London. The various film adaptations have made the story familiar to generations: the 1964 version My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn is probably the best-known, but more recent films such as She’s All That (1999) and The Duff (2015) have used the same source material to transplant the story into a modern setting.

The story of Pygmalion, in turn, is based on the Greek myth about a sculptor of the same name, who makes a sculpture of a woman so beautiful that he falls in love with it. Aphrodite, goddess of love, is moved by Pygmalion’s devotion and decides to turn the statue into a real woman, so they can live happily ever after.

Shaw’s play dispenses with the mythical elements. In his story, Professor Higgins who has an interest in phonetics, meets the cockney flower girl Eliza. Higgins places a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering, that he (Higgins) can change Eliza’s speech so thoroughly that he will be able to introduce her into high society as a duchess. Higgins and Eliza embark on a rigorous training regime, during the course of which affection develops between them. The original play does not end with Higgins and Eliza in a romantic relationship – however, subsequent productions and film adaptations have made changes to increase the story’s appeal.

Pygmalion shows the international nature of British cultural life in this period. Shaw himself was Irish; although Ireland was still part of Britain when the play debuted, he was removed from the core of the Empire. Pygmalion’s first production was in Vienna in 1912; it was also performed in the US before it reached the West End. Consequently, there was a lot of ‘buzz’ around the play when it arrived in His Majesty’s Theatre in 1914. Newspapers covered the first performance extensively with text and pictures, as the play had already built up a reputation. Of particular interest to the tabloids was the line ‘Not bloody likely’ which is uttered by Eliza during the play. That a female actor would say the word ‘bloody’ on stage was considered extremely transgressive; the papers were not even willing to print the word but rather referred to it as ‘b—-‘.

Despite the ostensibly extremely British setting of the story, which for a substantial part hinges on Eliza’s Cockney slang and the peculiarities of class identities in British society, the production continued to have international appeal. This is also evident from the film adaptions. As the story is so dependent on pronunciation, it would have made little sense to attempt to adapt it as a silent film. However, once sound films became the norm in the 1930s, the first country to adapt Pygmalion for the screen was Germany.

Rather incredibly, the second feature length film version was made in the Netherlands in 1937; it moves the plot to Amsterdam and introduces a romantic ending for Higgins and Eliza. The first Dutch sound film was only made in 1934, years after the first sound films were made in Britain, Germany and the US. That Dutch filmmakers were willing to invest into a production of Pygmalion, which included paying a substantial sum for the rights to the story, indicates that the producers were confident the film would be a hit with the domestic audience.

In 1938 the first British film version of Pygmalion appears; co-directed by Anthony Asquith and actor Leslie Howard, the latter also fulfilling the role of Professor Higgins. Wendy Hiller stars as Eliza. This version introduces some of the elements modern audiences are most likely to be familiar with from subsequent adaptations, for example Eliza’s speech exercises ‘the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain’ and ‘In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen.’ The ‘not bloody likely’ line was also retained, but by 1938 it caused notably less controversy than it had done two decades prior.

The casting of Howard, who was mid-forties at the time, as Professor Higgins, changed the dynamic of the story’s central relationship considerably. In the original productions, Higgins was an older man who was primarily interested in Eliza as a research object. When she emancipates herself throughout the story and asserts her rights as an individual, it takes Higgins by surprise as he has not previously considered her as an equal. Howard, who was a successful film star on both sides of the Atlantic, plays Higgins as an absent-minded but romantic hero, who comes to realise he loves Eliza. Although the ending of the film is somewhat open, it can be interpreted that Eliza ends up choosing Higgins over her (other) love interest, Freddie. Shaw hated Howard’s interpretation of the role; he was insistent that Eliza should not end up marrying Higgins.[1]

However, audiences favoured the ending and it was retained for the musical adaptation of the play, My Fair Lady, which was first produced on Broadway in 1956 and then, as noted above, turned into a successful film in 1964. The original story which promoted female emancipation and independence was turned into a more conventional romantic tale, in which the woman stays with the man who has provided for her rather than making her own way. Pygmalion shows both the changing social norms of interwar Britain which allowed the production to thrive despite (or because of) the female lead uttering a swear word; and the enduring attachment to patriarchal values which over time reduced and removed the story’s more radical ideas.

The 1938 film version of Pygmalion is in the public domain and available to view for free via the Internet Archive.

[1] Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in 1930s Britain (London: IB Tauris, 2010), p. 237

Jessie Matthews

Jessie Matthews was one of the biggest British screen stars of the 1930s. She achieved success not only in Britain, but also in the US, even though she never made a Hollywood film.[1] Matthews starred in a whopping fourteen films between 1931 and 1938; yet most contemporary articles foreground her private life over her film career. The BFI article linked to above references her ‘generally loveless marriages’; many sources refer to the details surrounding her second marriage to co-star and director Sonnie Hale.

Such interest in Matthew’s romantic life, with its undertones of tragedy and disapproval, undermine her considerable professional success. Matthews was not only an actress, but also a singer and dancer; her films showcase her considerable talent and the hard work she put in to master her craft.

Matthews was a commercial success almost from the start of her film career, but her establishment as a real star originated from the beginning of her collaboration with director Victor Saville. Saville and Matthews first worked together on The Good Companions; followed by Friday the Thirteenth (both 1933); Evergreen (1934); First a Girl (1935); and It’s Love Again (1936).

The Good Companions was based on a J. B. Priestley novel[2]; the text, as Lawrence Napper has argued, seeks to “express ‘modernity’ (…) without a retreat either away from the popular audience or into cultural pessimism.”[3] In other words, it seeks to create a balance between literary intellectualism and popular entertainment. By casting Matthews in a prominent role in the film, Saville picked an actor who herself embodied this duality. Matthews was born in a large, working-class family in Soho but much-commented-on elocution lessons allowed her to shape an upper-middle-class star persona.[4]

After The Good Companions, in which Matthews plays an ambitious actress from a humble background, Saville continued to cast Matthews in similar roles. The seemingly upper-class actress repeatedly played aspiring stage stars from common backgrounds:

In Friday the Thirteenth, as related in the post about that film, she’s an aspiring stage star caught in a bus crash.
In Evergreen Matthews is the daughter of a famous turn-of-the-century music hall star, who decides to impersonate her mother to achieve fame and success.
In First a Girl – an adaptation of the German film Viktor und Viktoria (1933) – she is an aspiring stage star who pretends to be a female impersonator to achieve fame and success.
In It’s Love Again she’s an aspiring stage star who pretends to be a socialite to achieve fame and success.

It was not unusual for 1930s actors on either side of the Atlantic to have such a defined star persona and to appear in a number of films along the same formula. In fact, in this respect Matthews had much in common with the other big British female star of the time, Gracie Fields. Although one of Fields’ key characteristics was her strong Northern accent, which was diametrically opposed to Matthew’s ‘plummy’ pronunciation, Fields also starred in a number of films in which she is a performer from a humble background who ends up achieving great success. As a female film viewer the message you received remained the same, regardless of whether you identified more with Matthews or Fields: being a stage performer was a desirable and exciting career through which you could find romantic love.

However, whereas Fields’ films were grounded in a very British, very working-class environment, with a strong emphasis on community, collaboration and staying positive in the face of adversity; Matthews’ films on the other hand presented the viewer with a glamourous and consumerist fantasy.[5] The sets are bright and light, with smooth floors that are perfect for impromptu dance performances. In Evergreen, Matthews’ character and her would-be love interest stay in a modern mansion in which she can showcase the latest luxury homeware whilst waltzing across the rooms.

To the modern viewer, the Matthews/Saville musicals feel akin to Hollywood films of the same period. Although the films are (mostly) set in Britain, they express a cosmopolitan outlook. They contain handsome, worldly men; art deco architecture; cocktails; and trips to the French Riviera. Contemporary audiences were already familiar with this fantasy world through the American films also available at the British box office. Matthews’ films brought that glamour to a British setting, suggesting that the same level of sophistication and modernity was also within reach on this side of the Atlantic. Although intellectual circles in interwar Britain retained a stubborn anti-Americanism, the popular success of Matthews as a film star indicates that the mass audience had no such qualms.

Today, however, Gracie Fields has remained relatively prominent in the public imagination, whereas Matthews is largely forgotten. Fields body of work evokes supposedly fundamental British qualities which appear to reflect the ‘good old days’ of community, common sense and national pride. Matthew’s oeuvre, on the other hand, shows only how much 1930s British culture was also about international cultural exchange and a dissolution of national identity. In the current times, which seem to be a near-constant quest of what it means to be ‘British’, it is Field who provides the more appealing answer to most; but the films of Jessie Matthews show that even a hundred years ago, being British was as much about having an international outlook as it was about celebrating local culture.

Jessie Matthew’s films are available on DVD from Network On Air.

[1] Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in 1930s Britain (London: IB Tauris, 2010), p. 207

[2] For more on J.B. Priestley see the post on Laburnum Grove (1933)

[3] Lawrence Napper, British Cinema and Middlebrow Culture in the Interwar Years (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2009), p. 83

[4] Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace, pp. 208-209

[5] Sarah Street, ‘‘Got to Dance my Way to Heaven’: Jessie Matthews, art deco and the British musical of the 1930s’, in Studies in European Cinema vol 2. no. 1 (2005), 19-30

Roadhouses

One of the lesser-known aspects of interwar Britain was the existence and popularity of roadhouses. A roadhouse was a large-ish venue, often located in the countryside a short driving distance from London. Their primary function was as a bar/pub, but many contained other entertainment spaces such as a dancefloor, a garden, or even a swimming pool.[1]

Cultural historian Michael John Law has done substantial work on roadhouses. He has demonstrated links between the emergence of roadhouses, the expansion of London’s suburbs, and the increase of private car ownership. Roadhouses were usually located alongside new bypasses, making it nigh impossible to access them in any way other than by car. Their location just outside the city allowed for the roadhouses to be bigger than a regular pub. The drive required to reach the roadhouse transformed the visit into an excursion. (It’s probably worth mentioning at this point that driving after drinking alcohol was perfectly legal in Britain until the mid-1960s.)

The interest of the popular media in the roadhouse appears to have peaked in 1932-1933. British Pathé visited a few roadhouses for their newsreels; those showing the ‘Ace of Spades’ near Kingston and the ‘Showboat’ in Maidenhead remain readily available. Both newsreels gratefully and extensively use the visual spectacle of roadhouse guests in swimwear, using the pool facilities. Beyond this focus on the swimming pool, however, both roadhouses are portrayed markedly differently.

The newsreel on the Ace of Spades consciously contrasts the roadhouse with more historical leisure pursuits and implies that the activities in the roadhouse are more energetic and transgressive. It exclusively shows activities taking place at night, including late-night swimming and a trio of singers performing a Duke Ellington song. The newsreel situates the Ace of Spades in the wider narrative of the aftermath of the roaring twenties and the London of the Bright Young Things. It shows the roadhouse as a space where adults can access ever-more exuberant entertainment and enjoy American cultural products.

The film taken at the Showboat, on the other hand, starts off during the day, and shows families with children enjoying the swimming pool. Here the roadhouse appears more like a country club where the community can enjoy its facilities. The evening’s cabaret is fairly staid, including dance performances and a comedian to whom no-one appears to be paying much attention. The Showboat is portrayed as less cosmopolitan and transgressive as the Ace of Spades, and as a less problematic space for Londoners to enjoy.

The links with American culture hinted at in the Ace of Spades newsreel were made much more explicitly in a 1932 Daily Express article entitled ‘Roadhouse Joys of Merrie England.’[2] In a stream of flowery language, the Express reporter describes his experiences in the ‘circle of gaiety that has been built around London.’ Yet the pleasure of the roadhouse cannot be enjoyed without complication for this reporter.

In 1932, some elements of the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), originally implemented during World War One, still remained in place. Amongst these were the restrictions on when alcohol could be purchased and consumed; any venue with a license to serve alcohol could only do so until 10pm, or 11pm in London. The roadhouse the journalist visited, however, did not have a license to serve alcohol. Rather, guests were asked to bring their own – and consequently there was no government-imposed closing time.

The reporter writes: ‘So here was the English “speakie”, flavoured with a touch of American slang.’ Really, the link with the speakeasy and the Prohibition is tenuous: there was no outright ban on alcohol in England and, as the roadhouse waiter who is quoted in the article explains, it is perfectly legal for anyone to bring in their own alcohol and consume it. But throughout the article the journalist appears determined to link the roadhouse to Americanisation: he implies that the phenomenon was imported from America and that the ‘spirit of Jazz’ pervaded the place. The overall impression is that the young people frequenting the roadhouses are turning their back on traditional English culture and values; but also that they are having tremendous fun whilst doing so. The article encapsulates a recurrent tension in British interwar reporting where new developments are welcomed and distrusted at the same time.

Roughly a year later, the debate about whether the roadhouses were fun or to be feared, continued. The proprietors of an island in the Thames near Hampton Court, known as the ‘Thames Riviera’, sued the owners of the Reynolds Illustrated News for libel.[3] The paper had printed a series of critical articles about ‘up-river’ nightlife, which the owners of the island argued were without foundation. The contested reports included ‘Scandalous Bathing and Dancing Scenes’; ‘Plea that Mobile Police Should Combat Growing Menace’; and claims that ‘a large number of young ladies [were] running about naked.’ Although the claims were vehemently disputed by the venue proprietors, there was clearly an assumption both in the papers and in court that the reports could be true.

Roadhouses were a brief and now largely forgotten phenomenon in interwar London. They originated at the intersection between urban expansion, a boost in car ownership, an increase in leisure time and disposable income, and a rise of interest in American culture. As with many other interwar developments that were primarily focused on entertainment, roadhouses caused considerable anxiety about the ‘Americanisation’ of Britain and a potential loosening of morals. These anxieties appear to have been articulated more explicitly in the written press, whereas the newsreels leveraged the visual pleasures roadhouses provided to present them primarily as places of innocent, wholesome and British fun.

[1] Michael John Law, ‘Turning night into day: transgression and Americanization at the English inter-war roadhouse’, Journal of Historical Geography, 35 (2009), 473-494

[2] ‘Roadhouse Joys of Merrie England,’ Daily Express, 18 April 1932, p. 11

[3] ‘Night Life up the River’, Daily Express, 3 March 1933, p. 7