Tim Whelan (1893–1957)

An enthusiastically oblivious dork goes to college.

Pleasant and cute. It's a character driven story, which is a big change of pace for Harold. Hopefully he sticks with this approach - he's just not funny enough for feature-length slapstick.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: C

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.1/4

(Feb. 2014)

Laughton is memorable, as always, in this story of a petty thief's (Leigh's) rise to stardom, while forgetting Laughton, who kept her out of jail and gave her her start as a performer. Leigh's character is not particularly likable, and it's a rather strange role that somehow doesn't quite gel, but there are some nice moments, a good supporting cast, and the Streets of London (the alternate title for the film).

A film starring Conrad Veidt and Sabu (United Artists, 1940).

A thief helps a deposed king meet a princess.

C- (Meh).

They had some big special effects they wanted to get to, and were not concerned with whether the story made sense.

(Apr. 2023)

This is a splendid early wartime thriller, with the wonderful plot twist that a corpse with a knife in his back is found and disposed of, but then reappears the next day in the same place with another knife in his back. A Nazi spy code-named SI-10 turns out to be identical with the license plate of his Lagonda, in which a secret microphone/speaker is disguised as a dashboard cigarette lighter. This is the only film ever produced by Dwight Taylor, the well known screenwriter who also scripted show more this. The main appeal of this film however is the powerful presence of the intensely disturbed Diana Barrymore, who combines womanly charm and fascination with a violent streak so terrifying and uncontrollable that it has rarely been encountered so unequivocally on screen. So powerful is this unsettling violence in her nature, that her tragic life story and suicide all too amply confirm that it was not just acting. As an actress, she was a natural. What a pity that she was so self-destructively mixed up, since a major talent was lost to the screen. She could have been the greatest Barrymore of them all if she could have held herself together. Brian Donlevy does very well as the whimsical American who gets mixed up in this story because he has been ‘bombed-out’ in the London Blitz while dressed in his dinner jacket. There are no gag lines in this script. It is a dark and brooding work, made darker by the London Blackout of course. There are many highly tense moments, and this thriller really works. (fonte: imdb) show less