Tag: Theatre

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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

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Ben Travers

Unlike some of the stars of the interwar silver screen, such as Madeleine Carroll and Ivor Novello, those working behind the scenes can often be a lot less well-remembered. This is certainly true for playwright Ben Travers, whose biggest professional success came during the 1920s and 1930s. He started out in theatre, writing many of the immensely popular Aldwych farces, a cycle of 12 popular plays staged between 1923 and 1933. When some of the farces were adapted for film, Travers also worked on the screenplay adaptations.

Ben Travers was born in 1886 in London. He initially started work in the family business, in the City of London. In Travers’ own words, taken from his autobiography: ‘I was to be sent to the City. Being sent to the City was then the inevitable lot of a youth who didn’t have the aptitude to do any good for himself by being sent anywhere else.’[1] Because the family business had branches all over the empire, Travers ended up travelling widely for his job, spending time in Singapore and Malaysia.

Alongside his day job, Travers was an avid theatre-goer, especially enjoying comedy plays. It was not long before he moved back to Britain, got a job in publishing, and started writing his own plays during the evenings.[2] He was following the advice espoused in the many writing handbooks of the time, and trying to build a writing career in his spare hours. However, commercial success as a writer remained elusive, and at the outbreak of the First World War Travers signed up and served in the Royal Naval Air Service.[3] At the end of the war, his original job was no longer available – Travers took this opportunity to ‘have a go’ at writing.[4] On the advice of those in the theatre industry, he wrote a farce, The Dippers. The text made its way through various theatre contacts and was eventually staged in London in the early 1920s.

The money that The Dippers earned Travers allowed him to keep writing, and he started turning out farces at greater speed. He wrote both A Cuckoo in the Nest and Rookery Nook immediately after The Dippers, and it were these plays that would link him to the Aldwych theatre. A Cuckoo in the Nest was initially considered by acting great Gerald du Maurier, but when this fell through, it was picked up by Tom Walls at the Aldwych. Walls, his co-star Ralph Lynn, and a group of other comic actors, had recently had great commercial successes with the plays Tons of Money and It Pays to Advertise. By 1925, they needed another hit, and opted to perform A Cuckoo in the Nest.[5] In Travers’ words ‘the farce was a definite success’, and it cemented a creative partnership that would last throughout the rest of the interwar period.[6]

The nine plays Travers wrote for the Aldwych company played almost continuously from 1925 through to early 1933. The longest-running play was Rookery Nook, which played 409 performances before it closed; it was followed by Thark which played 401 performances. From the early 1930s, when sound film was introduced in Britain, the company transferred their most popular plays to film. This was partially driven by the restless entrepreneurism of Tom Walls, who increasingly took on a director/manager role in addition to his acting. The first film they made was Rookery Nook. Although it was a commercial success, Travers later claimed that for him it was a ‘painful, distorted version of the genuine article’, as the film medium demanded a completely different approach to gags and timing.[7] Nonetheless, eventually eight out of the nine plays were turned into films, and Travers wrote another 12 film scripts in the 1930s, each of which were produced with some of the original Aldwych farce cast. Contractual obligations and developing personal relationships meant that Ralph Lynn and Tom Walls increasingly appeared separately, although they were often playing opposite other original Aldwych cast members. For example, in 1934 Travers wrote the script for Lady in Dangerstarring Tom Walls and Yvonne Arnaud, the latter of which had played in the stage version of A Cuckoo in the Nest back in 1925.

Travers wrote a few more film scripts in the 1940s and 1950s, and worked in theatre until his death in 1980. The most famous of is later works is the 1975 play The Bed Before Yesterday, which ran for 500 performances in the West End and starred a young Helen Mirren in the original cast. Yet the interwar period represented the undisputed peak of his career. Travers’ farcical comedies, poking fun at the middle classes without threatening to cause any real social disruption, were perfectly suited to a Britain where increasing numbers of white-collar workers had the money and leisure time to be entertained. In the Aldwych farces, he created a brand of humour that both tapped into historical stage traditions and simultaneously spoke to the social and cultural circumstances of the time in which it was made. By being able to transition to popular film at the exact time when the introduction of sound film created a demand for verbal (as opposed to physical) comedy, Travers ensured that his work was captured for posterity.

[1] Ben Travers, A-Sitting on a Gate (London: W.H. Allen, 1978), p. 22

[2] Ibid., pp. 37-39

[3] Ibid., p. 47

[4] Ibid., p. 61

[5] Leslie Smith, ‘Ben Travers and the Aldwych Farces’ , in Modern British Farce, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989), pp. 50-69

[6] Travers, A-sitting on a Gate, p. 92

[7] Ibid., p. 110

Out in the London Casino (1938)

FeaturedOut in the London Casino (1938)

Although films of interwar Britain occasionally had interest in illicit gambling activities (for example, this one), and illegal gambling clubs certainly existed in real life, the London Casino was not, in fact, a casino. Originally it opened as the Prince Edward Theatre on Old Compton Street in 1930, with the intention of putting on Ziegfeld Follies-style revues. This, however, proved commercially unsuccessful. According to a 1938 Picture Post article, the theatre then became the regular host of trade shows for talking films, as it was fully wired for sound films.[1] Trade shows allowed cinema managers and buyers from cinema chains to view films before they hit the market, and decide which films to purchase for exhibition in their own cinemas.

Showing trade films was not necessarily a profitable occupation, however, particularly as the theatre was not being used for anything else. Around 1935, therefore, two investors decided to work together to refurbish the theatre to the tune of (then) £25,000.[2] They renamed the venue the London Casino, and came up with a concept which was entirely new for the British capital at that time. All the theatre seats were stripped out and replaced by rows of dinner tables – in the stalls as well as on the dress circles. The seats nearest to the stage were removed entirely to create a dancefloor. Big staircases led down from the circles to this dancefloor. The space below the stage was converted into kitchens. Going forward, Casino guests would be able to ‘eat and drink inside a London theatre a full-size dinner.’

London Casino guests sit in tiered rows of dining tables, as shown in Picture Post

The Casino operated two shifts, one for dinner and one for supper. According to an early advert for the Casino, guests were served a five-course meal during their stay. During the meal, they could watch a show on the stage. After the show and dinner were over, guests could take the dancefloor – as long as they were dressed appropriately. ‘Evening Dress Optional but Essential for Dancing’ states the advert; and the Picture Post article notes that for seats on the balcony you did not have to wear evening dress. The advert suggests that all patrons paid the same price of 15s and 6d during the week and 17s 6d on Saturdays. By the time the Picture Post article was published, however, it was noted that some guests paid only 7s 6d, or less than half price. Presumably these were the balcony seats, right at the top of the theatre, which were ‘viewing only’.

Either way, the London Casino was a high-end night out; guests were only allowed to stay for 3 or 3.5 hours on weekdays, as their ‘slot’ only lasted so long. For comparison, West End cinema seats could only cost 1s 6d during this period, and suburban cinemas would be even cheaper. To spend 15s 6d a head on an evening’s entertainment would have been out of reach for many Londoners. Nonetheless, the Casino boasted of weekly revenues between £6000 and £7000, which would be ‘more money than any other entertainment in London.’[3] Clearly, by the end of the 1930s, there was sufficient disposable income at the top end of British society to sustain an innovative high-end club such as this.

In terms of the shows that patrons were treated to, the ample photography provided with the Picture Post article reveals a heavy reliance on ‘female beauty.’ Indeed, one can presume that the opportunity to publish photographs of scantily clad young women was one of the reasons why the editors of Picture Post decided to publish this article. Through the images in the weekly magazine a whole additional audience, who would not ordinarily be able to visit the Casino in person, were able to enjoy the ‘personal attractions of the dancers and show-girls.’[4]

A dance episode called ‘The Butterfly Hunt’ shows three young, thin, white women; two in bikini tops and gauzy skirts, the third appearing almost nude except for a bra and knickers. Dancer Maurice Brooke performed a stunt which required him to have one woman sitting on his neck and another (again in underwear) being swung round by him. Other scenes included ‘A Slave Market in Algeria’ (female slaves wearing minimal beaded outfits) and ‘The Bird of Night’ (women wearing skin-coloured, skin-tight outfits that make them appear nude). The final page of the article includes a photo of four showgirls backstage playing cards – they wear slinky dressing gowns and show their legs. The caption gives their names, as if to shrink the gap between them and the reader.

Although the Picture Post article exploits the female bodies for the visual pleasure of their readership, the article also cleverly juxtaposes these photos with an equal amount of photographs of audience-members viewing the stage. The article contains six photographs of audience members, most of them medium close-ups showing two or three patrons gazing intently towards what we presume is the stage. There is only one photograph of the guests dancing on the dancefloor after the show. It is implied that passive spectatorship, or ‘ogling’, is the main reason most people visit the Casino. The active participation in the dancing is secondary.

London Casino patrons as depicted in Picture Post

The article’s conclusion confidently states that the Casino ‘appears to have established itself as a permanent feature of London’s night life.’[5] The reality was different. The outbreak of the Second World War put an end to all performances, and by 1942 the theatre was repurposed as an entertainment venue for troops on leave. After the war, the theatre reverted back to being a cinema screening room, this time for ‘Cinerama’ films – films projected across three adjacent screens for a wide-screen effect. In the mid-70s the venue was once again converted back to a theatre, and it has been in business as the Prince Edward Theatre ever since.

[1] ‘A Night Out in London’, Picture Post, 10 December 1938, p. 21

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., p. 24

[4] Ibid., p. 21

[5] Ibid. p. 24

Stanley Lupino

FeaturedStanley Lupino

As the recent social media noise around ‘nepo babies’ highlighted, there are many instances of intergenerational celebrity today. There were also cases of this in interwar Britain, although it was less widespread. Actor Stanley Lupino, for example, was the son of actor George Lupino. Two of George’s brothers were music hall performers; one of them played Nana the Dog for the premiere of Peter Pan in 1904. Stanley and his brother Barry were both actors too. One generation down, Stanley’s daughter Ida Lupino became a famous Hollywood actor, writer and producer. One of Stanley’s nephews, Henry, took on the stage name Lupino Lane and developed a successful stage and film career, which included the introduction of the popular song and dance, the ‘Lambeth Walk.’

Stanley’s career stayed firmly in Britain; he was born in London in 1893 and died there in 1942. Like many other actors discussed in the pages of these blogs, he started his career on stage and only transitioned to films in the 1930s, when the introduction of sound film made the medium suitable for his comedy work. He started his pre-War stage career as an acrobat, then played pantomime and music hall. From the 1920s, he got involved with writing and producing musical comedy shows, being particularly connected with the Drury Lane theatre. He also extensively performed on radio after the founding of the BBC in 1922.

Lupino’s film career has by some scholars been regarded as exemplary of the general poor state of British films in the 1930s.[1] Whereas George Formby, Gracie Fields and even the Aldwych farces have received plenty of critical attention, until Stanley Lupino’s films were re-issued on DVD in the 2010s they were largely ignored. Yet, Lupino’s singing, dancing and comedy timing make his film work still eminently watchable. Over the course of the 1930s he acted in 13 films, of which he (co)wrote 12 of them. His considerable star power on the stage allowed him to script films which suited his comic talents.

The storylines of Lupino’s films are thin, aiming to provide predictable feel-good entertainment to a mass audience. (Indeed, one author has called them ‘absurd, naïve and unoriginal’[2]). In Facing the Music (1933) for example, Lupino aims to impress an aspiring opera singer by staging a fake jewel robbery during a performance. Of course, this goes wrong and the jewels are really stolen, requiring Lupino to recover them. In Cheer Up! (1936) Lupino is one half of an out-of-work song writing duo who are trying to obtain financial backing for their next venture. When their prospective funder turns out to also have no money, misunderstandings and comedy ensue.

Clip from Cheer Up! (1936)

Unlike Formby and Fields, Lupino did not play characters called ‘Stanley’ or other variations on his name. Instead, his characters have completely separate names and personality traits each film, widening the distance between the man and the character. Yet each of the fictional characters he portrays are charming, funny men looking to win the heart of a female love interest.

As noted above, in Cheer Up! Lupino plays one of a duo, alongside comedy actor Roddy Hughes. The pair weren’t a regular double-act, however. In Over She Goes (1937), Lupino appears alongside another comedy actor, Laddie Cliff in what would be the latter’s final film appearance. The plot of Over She Goes is classic Lupino fare: when Lupino’s character Tommy Teacher inherits an aristocratic title and moves himself and his friend into the accompanying stately home. Whilst the pair are trying to woo two young women, one of Tommy’s previous girlfriends appears who attempts to capitalise on his new wealth.

Over She Goes started its life as a stage production, penned by Lupino himself. The play’s success made it an attractive candidate for film adaptation for the Associated British Picture Corporation at Elstree Studios. The film was directed by Graham Cutts, who was also at the helm for other comedy pictures that decade like Gracie Field’s Looking on the Bright Side, and an adaptation of the enormously popular Jerome K. Jerome short story Three Men in a Boat.

Over She Goes contains some catchy song-and-dance numbers, transferred over from the stage show, which were able to be marketed and sold separately as records. The combination of male comic actors, attractive young women, and a high-society backdrop including large houses and hunting parties, makes the film great escapist entertainment in the vein of big Hollywood productions, whilst also retaining a specific British context which domestic audiences could relate to.

The finale song of Over She Goes

Stanley Lupino died relatively young, five days before his 49th birthday, during the Second World War. The was had put an end to his film production in any case, making his total film output a reflecting of the 1930s, from 1931 through to 1939. He is a good example of a ‘mid-tier’ film star of the period – less recognisable and lasting as Gracie Fields or George Formby, but successful enough to be able to steer and influence his career.

[1] Richard Dacre, ‘Traditions of British Comedy’, in The British Cinema Book, ed. Robert Murphy (London: BFI, 2009), p. 106

[2] Adrian Wright, Cheer Up! British Musical Films, 1929-1945 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000), p. 152

Father Christmases of London

Father Christmases of London

After last week’s slightly political piece, this week we’re launching into proper festive content. Again we’re turning our attention to Picture Post, the weekly photojournalism magazine launched in October 1938. In it’s first December, Picture Post ran an article on the ‘Father Christmases of London.’ The reportage gives an insight in this enduring seasonal job and the backgrounds of the men who took it on.

The piece appeared in the Picture Post of 17 December 1938 and ran across four pages. It is an article of two parts; the bottom third of the pages is taken up by an article setting out the cultural and historical background of Santa Claus in detail. It recalls the original Catholic Saint Nicholas, and how the worship of this saint diverged across different countries over time. It notes that ‘Protestantism has rooted out St. Nicholas Day from the English ecclesiastical calendar’[1] but that Santa Claus got imported back from the US after the tradition was started there by Dutch settlers. The article even covers localised European customs such as the Krampus, the origin of Christmas trees and of Santa Claus’s traditional dress.

Alongside this thorough exploration of the origins of Santa Claus, Picture Post presents portraits of ten men who are playing Santa across various department stores in London in the winter of 1938. Each man is shown both in their Santa outfit, and as their ‘normal selves’. The article shows how important and well-known the tradition of live Santa’s was to London’s luxury shopping market.

The background of these men puts them in one of two camps: half of them work or have worked in the department stores in which they act as Santa; the other half are actors, models or other types of entertainers. In the case of the first group, playing Santa appears to be a nice break from their day job for the month of December, after which they move back to their regular duties in January. George Dixon, for example, ordinarily worked in the wallpaper department at Barker’s, a large department store in Kensington. He had acted as the store’s Santa every year since his appointment as salesperson. It is likely Dixon was chosen for the role because he had a background as an actor in travelling troops.

George Dixon as Father Christmas for Barker’s in Kensington

Henry Tapsell, who acted as Santa in the Thomas Wallis department store in Holborn, did not have an acting background. He was a porter in the furniture department of the shop, a job which appears to have been one in a line of various manual labour roles. He started playing Father Christmas at the tender age of 26, finding it ‘a pleasant relaxation after shifting furniture for eleven months.’ At the other end of the age range, Alfred Hibbard, who played Santa in the Clapham store of Arding & Hobbs, was already retired. Prior to his retirement he worked in the shop as a porter. He took up the Father Christmas role after his retirement, probably to supplement his pension payments. Harrods’ Santa was also a member of staff: Herbert Heslam, who had worked in the calico, cotton and rayon department for twelve years.

It obviously made financial sense for some department stores to use existing staff for this December engagement. These men were often long-term employees so proven to be reliable, and apparently they could be spared on the shop floor despite a likely Christmas rush. Their regular roles demonstrate that department stores regularly employed male staff, but that they were often placed in furniture and home furnishing departments which required more heavy lifting and manual handling.

Other shops went down a different route, hiring freelance actors and models for this seasonal employment. Selfridge’s, for example, opted in 1938 to hire actor and model Charles Mackenzie. Mackenzie, an Australian who had made it over to Britain after fighting as an Anzac in the First World War, estimated he had appeared in up to 200 feature films. Sydney Kempster, who played Santa at Gamage’s department store in Holborn, was also a film extra. Although he was less prolific, he had some high-profile credits to his name such as a small role in Victor Saville’s Sailing Along and the ensemble film O-Kay for Sound. According to the article, ‘in the old days of silent films’, Kempster also ran a cinema.

Charles Mackenzie as Santa for Selfridge’s

A similarly enterprising attitude was taken by Stanley Ross, who played Father Christmas at Whiteley’s in Bayswater. Prior to the First World War Ross was a producer of silent films, producing two films with the famous actor Lupino Lane. Ross also acted in films. The most varied showman playing Santa in 1938 was Hamilton Harvey, who took up the red mantle for Derry & Tom’s in Kensington. Harvey was a conjuror, ventriloquist, musician and composer with his own music hall act. According to the Picture Post article he played eight different instruments – it is not recorded whether he incorporated any of them in his Santa Claus act.

This Father Christmas article is typical of the things Picture Post printed in its early years. It combines fairly in-depth historical detail with contemporary reportage on a human interest topic. One can imagine the editorial pitch meeting in which a reporter suggests finding out who is behind the fake moustaches and beards of London’s Santa’s. The 1930s still saw a high number of large department stores in the capital, each willing to invest in a real, permanent Father Christmas for December to draw in the crowds.

At the same time the men taking up the elaborate robes in these opulent surroundings were largely of working-class backgrounds. For some, playing the role was a welcome break from a physically demanding job on the shop floor. For others, it represented a quasi-steady gig in an uncertain free-lance career in the developing entertainment industry. The Picture Post article not only gives an insight into Christmas traditions of the late 1930s, but also into consumer culture and working conditions of the time.

[1] ‘These are the Father Christmases of London’, Picture Post, 17 December 1938, pp. 34-37

The Gaunt Stranger (1938)

<strong>The Gaunt Stranger (1938)</strong>

As has been noted previously on this blog, the work of detective fiction writer Edgard Wallace was often used as source material for British interwar films. Wallace was a prolific writer, so despite his early death in 1932, there were plenty of opportunities to translate his work to the screen for years afterwards. One such crime thriller is 1938’s The Gaunt Stranger. What sets this story apart from most British interwar crime fodder is that, very unusually, the criminal escapes the police at the end of the story.

Like so many interwar texts, The Gaunt Stranger existed in multiple formats and under different titles. Wallace originally published the story as a novel in 1925 under the title The Gaunt Stranger. Shortly after its publication, Wallace adapted it for the stage in collaboration with celebrated acter Gerald Du Maurier under the same name. In 1926 Wallace re-published the novel, now titled The Ringer, with some modifications to the text based on the stage production. The Ringer appears to have been put on stage again in 1929, and was also adapted as a film in Britain in 1928, 1931 and 1952. The second of these films was directed by Walter Forde, who in 1938 directed the story again under the auspices of Michael Balcon at Ealing Studios, but this time under the book’s original title.

The story of The Gaunt Stranger is almost as intricate as its production history. Set over a period of only 48 hours, it centres on lawyer-cum-criminal Maurice Meister, who receives warning that he is to be killed on 17 November, in two days’ time, by the notorious criminal ‘The Ringer’. Everyone in England, including Scotland Yard, believed the Ringer to have been killed two years’ previously in Australia. After the Ringer’s apparent death, Meister took in the Ringer’s sister as his secretary. It is insinuated that his relationship with the woman was more than just professional, and she committed suicide on 17 November the previous year. The Ringer appears to have come back from the dead to avenge his sister.

The Scotland Yard team is made up of DI Alan Wembury, Scottish police surgeon Dr Lomond, and Inspector Bliss, who has recently returned from Australia and who was the man who ostensibly killed the Ringer two years previously. Wembury calls in the help of small-time criminal Sam Hackett, who is one of the few men in England who would be able to recognise the Ringer. Wembury also has an admiration for Meister’s current secretary, Mary Lenley, whose brother Johnnie is also a criminal recently released from Dartmoor. Finally, in the course of the investigation the police identify and question Cora Ann, the Ringer’s American wife.

DI Alan Wembury and Mary Lenley in The Gaunt Stranger

With a runtime of only 71 minutes and a comprehensive cast of characters with complicated interrelations, The Gaunt Stranger moves at a rapid pace. Nonetheless, Forde makes effective use of repeated panning shots of empty rooms inside Meister’s house. The film opens with several shots of these empty rooms, ending with a shot of Meister playing his piano. Similar shots are repeated several times during the film, to stress Meister’s solitary living arrangements and highlight his vulnerability. As the 17 November dawns, Scotland Yard effectively imprison Meister in his own house to ensure he stays safe. Little do they know that the danger will not be coming from outside the house.

The closed circle of characters and the physical closure of Meister’s house set The Gaunt Stranger up as a classic murder mystery. What remains unclear until the end, however, is the identity of the Ringer himself. Johnnie, the criminal brother of secretary Mary, is a possible contender. More suspicious is inspector Bliss, who so recently returned from Australia. He acts oddly throughout the film, and seems reluctant to trust Wembury or collaborate fully with the investigation. Wembury does not know Bliss personally, opening up the possibility of him being someone other than who he pretends to be. Cora Ann also behaves oddly, first insisting that her husband is dead, before changing her story and admitting that he is still alive.

Johnnie Lenley and Sam Hackett in The Gaunt Stranger

Meister himself is also anything but a sympathetic character. Like other books of the period, Wallace opted to make his victim an unpleasant character, so that the audience is not too concerned whether the murder is prevented or not. More unusually, however, Wallace also arranged for the Ringer, when his identity is eventually revealed, to make a spectacular escape from the police and the country. Once the Ringer’s identity is confirmed, it is clear to the audience in retrospect that Cora Ann has been playing along with her husband throughout the film. Their escape, which involves piloting a plane from a nearby airfield, was clearly planned in advance.

The Ringer and Cora Ann escape in The Gaunt Stranger

The police in The Gaunt Stranger are depicted as organised and capable. They effectively arrest multiple people throughout the film and are not fooled by Meister’s attempts to come across as a respectable lawyer – they are fully aware of his criminal activities. When Sam Hackett, the criminal informer, attempts to steal some of Meister’s silverware, he is apprehended by a Bobby almost immediately. Johnnie, too, is arrested as soon as he tries to break into a house. The film puts some of the police’s technological infrastructure on display, such as telegrams and cars wired with radios. Nevertheless the Ringer’s unscrupulous nature allows him to escape despite the police’s efforts. The Gaunt Stranger is one of the few British interwar films which entertains the possibility of a fallible police force that can be outwitted by master criminals.

Let Me Explain, Dear (1932)

<strong>Let Me Explain, Dear (1932)</strong>

The introduction of sound film in Britain around 1930 opened up more opportunities for filmmakers to produce comedies based on dialogue rather than slapstick. As London’s theatre sector was thriving, many comic plays transferred over to the silver screen. Popular plays such as Pygmalion were turned into films, and of course a whole series of popular farces performed at the Aldwych theatre were also adapted.

Almost more than any other genre of film, comedy is specific to the time and place in which it was made. An adaptation of a 1915 comedy play made in 1932 is a good example of this. Let Me Explain, Dear was based on the play ‘A Little Bit of Fluff’, the full text of which is available to read online. ‘A Little Bit of Fluff’ was a great success when it was first staged and it ran for the majority of the First World War at the Criterion Theatre, no doubt giving audiences a welcome respite from the war news (the theatre poster available on Wikipedia highlights that the Criterion was ‘built entirely underground’ and therefore safe in case of air raids).

The play was adapted into a film in 1919 by the short-lived Q Film Productions company, and again in 1928 for a larger-scale production starring Betty Balfour as one of the female leads. Let Me Explain, Dear is the first sound film adaptation of the play; all three adaptations are produced in Britain for the domestic market, as they cater to a specific cultural sensibility. ‘A Little Bit of Fluff’ is positioned as a farce, but its comedy is much broader than that of the Aldwych farces that had become so popular by the time Let Me Explain, Dear was released.

The story of the film, which is only slightly evolved from the play, is simple enough. George Hunter is married to Angela, a domineering woman who holds the financial purse strings in the relationship. When George believes Angela to be away from home, he meets Mamie, a glamourous young woman with an undefined job in some sort of performance-related industry. Mamie has borrowed an expensive pearl necklace from a banker boyfriend.

Mamie (Jane Carr) and George (Gene Gerrard) getting cozy in a taxi in Let Me Explain, Dear

The necklace accidentally ends up with George and then Angela. In an attempt to retrieve the necklace or make enough money to buy a replacement, George ropes in the help of his neighbour Merryweather to scam a newspaper insurance scheme. Eventually personal relations, necklaces, and scams get hopelessly tangled up before George ends up reconciled with Angela and Mamie returns to her banker boyfriend.

One of the ways in which the film has updated the original play text is through the inclusion of the apparently newfangled and fictitious concept of the ‘water taxi’. At the opening of the film, George takes a ‘water taxi’, a speedboat across the Thames, because he sees Mamie inside it. Due to George’s clumsiness, the taxi ends up crashing into the side of a much bigger vessel. This accident later forms the basis of George’s attempt to claim insurance money from his newspaper. In the original play, the alleged accident was that of a bus. The inclusion of the water taxi allows for some spectacular shots of the boat speeding across the Thames – and by 1932 buses were much safer than they had been in 1915, perhaps making the idea of a bus accident slightly less believable.

The ‘water taxi’ in action in Let Me Explain, Dear

The fact that George tries to scam money from an insurance scheme run by a popular newspaper also does not appear in the original text. In the play, the insurance scheme is run by the bus company itself – prior to the unification of London Transport in 1933 separate bus companies maintained the various routes across London. By the time Let Me Explain, Dear was made, the ‘newspaper wars’ were in full swing and popular newspapers tried to gain more subscribers in part by offering generous insurance schemes. Let Me Explain, Dear uses this to bring its plot right up to date for contemporary viewers.

Let Me Explain, Dear has the occasional moment of verbal wit that has stood the test of time – when Angela reveals the pearl necklace she has found in George’s overcoat pocket, she snaps ‘What do you say to that?’ George’s friend Merryweather responds: ‘I don’t know, I’ve never talked to one before.’ Mostly, though, the blatant sexism underpinning the entire plot and dialogue alienates the film from modern viewers. The relationship between George and Angela appears to be solely built on mutual distrust and annoyance. When Merryweather asks George how he came to be married to Angela, his response is ‘I just sort of sobered up and there she was.’

Merryweather (Claude Hulbert); Angela (Viola Lyel) and George (Gene Gerrard) in Let Me Explain, Dear

Whereas in the play it is made clear that George is such a bad entrepreneur that his work activities were actively costing the couple money, and that is why Angela has demanded he stop ‘working’, in the film Angela appears to solely want to emasculate George by paying everything for him. George’s quick work to woo Mamie is not judged, and Mamie herself is a cardboard character who prances around in underwear and starts screaming hysterically (and then faints) when she thinks her pearl necklace has been stolen.

Mamie (Jane Carr) relaxing at home in Let Me Explain, Dear

Lead actor Gene Gerrard also co-wrote and co-directed Let Me Explain, Dear; a feat he repeated in the same year with Lucky Girl, another light comedy adapted from a stage play. Alhtough there is not much to recommend Let Me Explain, Dear to modern audiences, it is a necessary reminder of the range and variety of output of the British film industry during the interwar period.

Looking on the Bright Side (1932)

Looking on the Bright Side (1932)

By 1932, Gracie Fields was already a huge star. Although she’d only appeared in one film, 1931’s Sally in Our Alley, she had been a major stage star and popular singer since the mid-1920s. After the big success of her first film, it was quickly followed up with a second one which showcases both Field’s singing talent and her comic wit.

In Looking on the Bright Side Fields plays Gracie, first in a series of film roles in which her character have her name, to provide the illusion that she is essentially playing herself. Gracie is a manicurist who lives in a flat in a modern housing estate in London. Her boyfriend, Laurie, is a hairdresser in the same beauty parlour, and lives in a flat opposite Gracie. He is also a budding songwriter who is looking for his big break.

Directors Basil Dean and Graham Cutts make the most of the stage set with its symmetrical staircases running up the front of the building. During the film’s opening, all inhabitants of the estate sing along to Laurie’s newest song in a scene reminiscent of stage musicals. Laurie’s song is the titular ‘Looking on the Bright Side’ which reflects the particular brand of working-class optimism on which much of Fields’ stage persona traded.

Gracie and Laurie in their adjacent flats in Looking on the Bright Side

In the beauty parlour, where Laurie and Gracie work as a team on actress Josie Joy. When the couple tell Josie about Laurie’s new song, she offers to introduce them to her manager, Oscar Schultz. Gracie is sceptical but Laurie enthusiastically jumps at the chance to further his career. When Laurie’s song is a success with Schultz, Laurie gives up his hairdressing job and is swept off his feet by the attentions of Josie Joy.

Laurie doing Miss Josie Joy’s hair in Looking on the Bright Side

Gracie is left behind on the estate. She loses her job when the arrogant Josie Joy comes in for a manicure and Gracie is unable to treat her civilly. After briefly taking a job as a female police officer – a section of the film mostly used to showcase Fields’ comic talent – Laurie sees the error of his ways and he and Gracie reunite for a big singalong at the estate.

Fields’ celebrity persona was inextricably linked with her own, working-class Lancashire roots. She retained her strong northern accent throughout her career, and her films celebrate working-class community over individual fame and riches. The class conflict in Looking on the Bright Side is introduced when Laurie is first invited to play his songs for Oscar Schultz. When Laurie and Gracie arrive at Schultz’ suite at the Dorchester Hotel, a busy cocktail party is in full swing. The women present call each other ‘darling’ and use expressions like ‘it’s a scream!’ – expressions which the down-to-earth Gracie would never use.

After Laurie and Gracie perform their song, Schultz singles out Gracie and tries to persuade her to agree to a role in his next musical production. Although Schultz’ intentions appear to be honourable, his way of cornering Gracie and persuading her to drink another cocktail put her off, and she declines his offer. Laurie, in the meantime, is sitting at the piano surrounded by women and does not want to leave the party with Gracie. Instead he stays out till 3.30am, much to Gracie’s dismay.

Laurie’s dreams to make it big in showbusiness are portrayed as naïve and, to a certain extent, wrong. This is partly because his talent as a songwriter is limited; without Gracie, he struggles to write good songs and eventually Schultz sacks him. Gracie, on the other hand, is genuinely talented but is not interested in pursuing fame. Instead, she prioritises the community of the estate over individual ambition.

The sense of community is not only shown in the estate-wide singalongs that bookend the film, but also in Gracie’s relationship with her neighbour Hetty and Hetty’s young daughter Bettina. No explanation is given for Bettina’s absent father. Hetty works as a police officer and Gracie frequently looks after Bettina when Hetty is on duty. The very warm and natural relationship between Fields and the child actor provides a strong counterpoint to the vacuous lovemaking between Laurie and Miss Joy.

Fields acting with Bettina Montahners in Looking on the Bright Side

The section in which Gracie signs up with the Metropolitan Police has little relevance to the plot. Female police officers were still relatively rare in 1932, and they were certainly not regularly portrayed on screen. Predicably, the rigid enforcement of rules within the corps is used to set up some physical slapstick comedy situations for Fields. Although Fields quickly decides to leave the Police force, it is not the notion of female police officers which is rejected, but rather the idea that Fields herself would be suitable in such a controlled environment.

Looking on the Bright Side takes a reasonably meta approach to the business of song writing and song-selling, as the film itself was clearly a vehicle for selling records and sheet music of the songs it includes. At the same time, it obfuscates its own part in commercial song writing by presenting other careers and industries as more valuable and viable.

Lady in Danger (1934)

Lady in Danger (1934)

Actor-director-manager Tom Walls was a popular comic actor on the interwar stage and screen. From 1922 onwards he produced and (often) starred in a series of enormously successful farcical plays at the Aldwych theatre. Many of these plays were turned into films in the 1930s, often with Walls directing. At the Aldwych, a steady cast of actors quickly formed, which took roles in each of the plays. Alongside Walls, the other male lead was Ralph Lynn; supporting roles were taken by Robertson Hare, Mary Brough, Winnifred Shotter and Yvonne Arnaud. The scripts were usually supplied by Ben Travers.

After sound film became a viable proposition in Britain, the Aldwych team recorded their repertoire for the screen at speed. Their first film, Rookery Nook, was produced in 1930. Then followed two more films in both 1931 and 1932, three films in 1933, another two in 1934 and the final one in 1935. After the supply of stage productions was exhausted, there followed another five films, based on original scripts, starring both Lynn and Walls (1935-1937). Both men also appeared separately in films during the 1930s, either with or without other Aldwych cast members.

One such film, associated to the Aldwych farcical tradition but not quite a part of it, is Lady in Danger. Walls plays the male lead opposite Yvonne Arnaud, an originally French actress who gave up a promising career as a pianist in favour of the stage.[1] Theatre remained her primary occupation throughout her career, but Arnaud also appeared in twelve films during the interwar period. Half of these were related to the Aldwych team.

Lady in Danger was written by Ben Travers specifically for Walls and Arnaud, although Travers initially intended it to be a play rather than a film.[2] The film plays on their strengths and their personas, which by 1934 would have been extremely familiar to their audiences. Walls plays a charmer and ladies man, as he does in most of his films (and indeed as he appears to have been in real life). Arnaud’s secret weapon was her enduring French accent and supposed ignorance of the nuances of English, which could be played up for laughs. After more than a decade of regular collaboration, Walls and Arnaud had a great chemistry and rapport which is clear on the screen.

Lady in Danger starts in the fictional European state of Ardenberg – a ‘Ruritania’ setting such as this was gratefully used by film writers of the period to add some foreign flavour to their films without getting bogged down in cultural or historical accuracy. Ardenberg is on the verge of a revolution, during with the royal family will be deposed. British businessman Richard Dexter (Walls) flies into the country to retrieve stolen bonds. Before he leaves, the leader of the Ardenberg revolution asks him to escort the Queen (Arnaud) to Britain to keep her safe. The Ardenberg King has found refuge in his Paris apartment.

Upon arrival in London, Dexter has to keep the Queen hidden to ensure her continued safety. It proves difficult to hide her in his London flat, particularly when his fiancée Lydia stops by. Dexter moves the Queen to a country cottage, where the sparks between the couple fly. Ultimately, however, the Queen decides to return to Paris and join her husband. It’s made clear that the King regularly enjoys affairs, which lessens the severity of the Queen’s transgression. The monarchy is restored in Ardenberg and Dexter returns to Britain and to Lydia.

As can be expected for a comedy, the plot of Lady in Danger is rather thin, and mostly there to provide Walls and Arnaud with opportunities for verbal sparring. Sample dialogue includes Arnaud, after getting settled in the cottage and unpacking her luggage, announcing: ‘I am ready now for bed – I have undone all my clothing!’ Travers’ writing had a reputation for these types of jokes which stayed just on the right side of the BBFCs censorship rules, and the Sunday Times noted that ‘Skating on thin ice is this author’s speciality, and the riskiness of some of the double entendres is astonishing.’[3]

For a modern viewer, the ‘risqué’ jokes ensure that Lady in Danger is still funny and watchable, even if the characters are concerned about things such as what the housekeeper may think about an unknown woman sleeping in Walls’ spare room. It is (still) refreshing to see an actress in her mid-forties play a part in which she unapologetically pursues an affair and then also decides to walk away from a charming man in favour of her professional obligations. Arnaud seems to thoroughly enjoy the role in which she gets to boss everyone around.

Although Lady in Danger is not one of the original Aldwych farces, and it does not provide the same brand of humour that films with both Lynn and Walls deliver, it is still very funny. It is less silly than some of the team’s other films, and may appeal to audiences who find farcical humour difficult to enjoy. It also showcases Arnaud’s comic talent and allows new generations to discover this renowned actress.

Lady in Danger is available to view on the Internet Archive.

[1] Mark Newell, Oh, Calamity! The Lost, Damaged and Surviving Films of the Aldwych Farces and Farceurs (Kibworth: The Book Guild, 2020), p. 255

[2] Ibid., p. 170

[3] Ibid. p. 171