As dreadful as this was, I had to stick with it to find out who did it so It's not quite bad enough to make you switch off. Fans of 1990s comedy will recognise Harry Enfield's "Mr Cholmondley-Warner" the character from his sketch show - for some reason calling himself Michael Shepley - but surely that's him!
Unless you are a Twickenham Studios completist or are so drunk or stoned that you cannot get up out of your chair to switch this off if it comes on Talking Pictures TV, you have no reason whatsoever to even think about watching this. It's not an especially bad film - no, there are lots of films equally as bad as this, it's just generally bad. But you're not meant to be watching this anyway. These were made as disposable screen fillers. Once they'd served their purpose they'd never be seen again, you'd never see these more than a week after their release date, it didn't matter to the actors how bad they were because hardly anyone would see them so watching one ninety years later is just silly!
Although you know that quality was not a word you'd associate (originally) with Julius Hagen's Twickenham Studios, you might sometimes watch them because every now and then there's that rare pearl which they made amongst the sludge of rotting oysters. Julius Hagen proudly proclaimed that he churned these quickies out at a quarter of the cost and a quarter of the filming time that they'd spend at big studios like Gaumont. He did however have one fabulous director, Bernard Vorhaus who could work miracles on a budget which wouldn't cover the cost of lunch at Paramount. Unfortunately Bernard Vorhaus did not make this. This is made by someone who just turned up for his minimum-wage paycheque. If you've seen a few of Mr Vorhaus's semi-classics and are expecting something equally good here, think again. This looks like exactly what it is - something which cost a quarter of the budget of a normal British film to make and was filmed in one day. The cast honestly seem as though they've only just seen the script for the first time a few hours earlier. They have no idea who their characters are - they're just reading words. With no time to waste on practice and run-throughs, you're essentially watching what would be a rehearsal over at a normal studio.
But despite the obvious cost-cutting quality of production I kept with it until the end for two reasons: a) the actual plot was reasonably interesting and kept me guessing until the very end - and b) it got me wondering why in the 1930s we all seemed to speak with that crazy accent but after the war it was only the Queen who did?
