Escape!

This is the first film on Volume One of The Ealing Studios Rarities Collection that I have been collecting over the last 5 years or so and on viewing it as the first one I then had doubts as to should I have invested so much money in getting the whole set because to be quite frank this film is awful!! And I simply do not understand why the other reviewers gave it a favourable write up.

Wooden acting, stilted dialogue, it made me think I was watching a film of some local AmDram production that had spilt over from the local village hall into the village and local countryside.

Interesting to see Gordon Harker in a small part before his excellent Inspector Hornleigh three (only!) films and a barely recognisable Nigel Bruce who went on of course to be the bumbling Dr Watson to the excellent Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes (in my opinion the best). So, apart from having a cigarette named after him and fathering Daphne Du Maurier, Sir Gerald should have stayed the other side of the camera as far as I am concerned.

The noted theatre director,Basil Dean,helped form Associated Talking Pictures and built new sound stages at Ealing Studios.He signed a distribution contract with Radio Pictures ,the British subsidiary of RKO,with the hope of producing prestige British films.The cast for this film easily convinces one of that fact.However what RKO had in mind is that this would be a way of complying with their quota requirements,so the films from Ealing could go out on the bottom half of a double bill with one of their Hollywood films.So it was not a surprise that a parting of the ways came a couple of years later for RKO and 5 years later for Dean after a string of disastrous flops,mainly starring his wife. This film is more interesting for the cast than for the content.As has been pointed out in another review Mabel Poulton coming to the end of her screen career halted by her voice.Other actors such as Nigel Bruce,Ian Hunter and Madelaine Carroll on their way up. Du Maurier is excellent,even if a bit unlikely as the convict.Whilst the film creaks with age nevertheless it is very watchable.

An early Ealing chase thriller starring Gerald Du Maurier. Made in 1930, it has some of the typical stilted screen acting of that period and Du Maurier also pulls out some rather theatrical gestures, too, on occasion. What sets this apart to a degree, is how well filmed it is with meaningful close ups, shadow and camera special effects. There is also a vein of humour that runs through it and at times it feels like an early run at Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. Du Maurier, though not a natural screen actor, is very watchable and the characters he runs into are rather fun, everything from a hooray Henry to spunky young lasses and a empathetic man of the cloth. Of course, despite being a convict he is a thoroughly decent English gent and there are those who try to help and those who try to hinder him after his prison break. Of the latter, Nigel Bruce has a nice little turn as a Cornish constable who arrests him, complete with an authentic accent.

Based on John Galsworthy's 1920s play this is a 1930 feature film made by director/producer Basil Dean. Opening with a fox hunt this is a story of a man - played by Sir Gerald du Maurier - on the run from prison in Dartmoor, Devon. You see he's 'a toff' whose been given 5 years for manslaughter (something involving a prostitute and coming to her rescue in Hyde Park when she's accosted by a police officer over 'original sin' !?) and doesn't take well to being treated 'like a dog' in prison. And it's not the first time he's been on the run, as he was a captain in the British Army who went on the run from the Germans after being captured in the First World War. Featuring stagey performances (and a fast talking du Maurier), an at times observational camera, 'primitive' and studio bound sound quality, and good rural locations (Wansford), the essential dilemma in this film is 'to grass, or not to grass, that is the question'. It's a crude meditation on punishment, forgiveness, redemption, the shaping effects of experience, and 'duty' versus compassion. The women - including Edna Best, Madeleine Carroll and Ann Carson - seem far more sympathetic to the fugitive than the men.

Gerald DuMaurier is a prisoner in Dartmoor for manslaughter. Under the cover of a dense fog, he makes a break and tries to avoid recapture, with every man's raised against him, and every woman's outstretched to help him.

It's the first release from ARP, the production company established as a collaboration between RKO and Basil Dean. It would evolve into Ealing, although at this point they were still building the studio facilities and the interiors were shot at the British Lion studios in Beaconsfield. Dean had started out as an actor, become a writer and stage director, and had directed his first talkie movie, THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, for Paramount the previous year. This one starts out with the claim of featuring stars of the British stage and screen, and it does so, with players like Gordon Harker, Edna Best, Mabel Poulton, Ian Hunter and future stars like Madeleine Carroll and Nigel Bruce. More than that, it has an air of excitement, in the many sets, location shooting and crowd scenes impossible on the stage. If the camerawork seems a bit stodgy and the lines delivered in a mildly stagey manner, it's clearly meant to be a major production, and the talent involved makes that clear.

Dean would run the company until the outbreak of the Second World War, developing major talent like George Formby Jr. and Gracie Fields. Although ARP's output was rarely distinguished, its stars' popularity kept it in the running.