Things Happen at Night

The last and least of the screen comedies made together by Aldwych farce duo Alfred Drayton and Robertson Hare, this is mildly amusing in its quirky way, but should have been funnier. Hare in particular has little material to work with, slightly more humour emerging from Gordon Harker's dry exchanges with Wylie Watson's butler. Francis Searle's direction is pedestrian and the night-time confrontation with the poltergeist clumsily handled though ending in quite satisfying fashion. Searle told Brian McFarlane how Drayton suffered a heart attack in the ballroom scene - missing from some prints - where Harker is being sawed in half, and to complete it had to be brought back from hospital; he can be seen lying on the floor having supposedly fainted. Can't imagine they could get away with this today.