User reviews

1780: Two gentlemen gamble in a house on Hyde Park corner. One cheats the other, is discovered and they duel in front of two witnesses; one dies, pronouncing a curse on the house, as the other is led away. 1935: The same actors, same names, but distant descendants of the characters come together in a series of murders.

Based on a popular West End play of the previous season (Harker had starred in his dual role in it), this stars Gordon Harker as a constable and Binnie Hale as a woman he arrests for shoplifting. As they wrangle and wind up solving the first murder and the new one. It's easy to see why this had been a success, with its combination of Harker's clowning, Sinclair Hale's singing and dancing and liberal doses of mysticism and whodunnits.

Producer/Director Hill wanted to produce good movies, and he would eventually get a knighthood for his efforts; this one clearly has a good budget for the era, but it's all carried on the shoulders of the leads ... who have the strength to carry the movie.

What a fun film this is! A ripping yarn, a jolly jape, a spiffing tale of derring-do. It's a very silly film and the way it's presented in such a straight laced manner makes it all the funnier. It's essentially a good old 1930s murder mystery with the daftest motive ever in movie history. That motive is revealed in the opening scene, a flashback to a wonderfully unrealistic, village theatre company interpretation of 1780, a scene that is spookily re-enacted 150 years later by the same cast but now in modern dress.

The humour in places is so subtle that it's almost as if the film makers didn't care whether you got the joke as long as it amused themselves. It's such a far cry from some of the more commercially successful and usually very loud and shouty films from both sides of the Atlantic where the brash comedy is virtually forced down your throat. This features the unlikely pairing - but weirdly common in the mid-thirties, of grumpy old cockney Gordon Harker playing the most clichéd policemen you could imagine (and if you're wondering who he reminds you of, it's Lionel Jeffries) and England's very own answer to Joan Blondell, Binnie Hale. These two are clearly not Olivier and Vivien Leigh (or Blondell) but they're instantly likeable and have great sparkling chemistry together.

This is however a super-cheap picture so don't expect all the trimmings but despite it looking like it was made for just a couple of bob and the story written by your six year old nephew, it really is truly enjoyable and is incidentally, one of the best films I've seen which transports you back to 1930s - it's got a lovely warm, albeit amateurish feel to it. Sometimes a film can be so over-polished that there's no substance left to it. You don't need a Selznick, Gable or Shearer to make something entertaining. So who made this? Harcourt Templeman and Sinclair Hill, who sound more like railway stations than actual people created their own independent production company called Grosvenor Films in 1935 to make the films they wanted to make. By hiring out space at the big studios (this one was made at BIP), they produced seven pictures before the economic slump of 1937 hit the UK and halted their ambitions - it was fun while it lasted though.

\this film contains what must be the most ineptly staged and photographed sword fight in cinematic history.Portman and McLaughlin seem as if they have never picked up a sword in their lives.The camera man tries to make it look it exciting but nothing can hide the sheer ineptitude.The film starts in the 18th century and then fast forwards 150 years which is when the film really begins.Gordon Harker as usual plays a policeman and so you know very much what to expect.The story is poorly developed and it is really only held together by the two leads.It is not by any means boring but it does rather leave you scratching your head wondering what it is all about.It is still available on video.

A straightforward, talky plod through decidedly fanciful subject matter.

Based on a play, which explains the sometimes eccentric doubling-up of members of the cast; the uncredited presence in which of Donald Wolfit further adds to the general strangeness of the piece.

A duel staged in the titular house reverberates for generations. Wretched British movie from journeyman director Sinclair Hill which is so lacking in focus that it's virtually impossible to get into it. A dull, meandering mess which, despite being based on a play, feels as though they were making it up as they went along.

This was filmed as a cheap quota quickie less than one year after opening at the Apollo Theatre in London with Gordon Harker starring in that too. I don't know how or how well it went down there but I take it as a romantic-thriller-farce although it's sometimes difficult to believe such stodgy material and semaphore-style acting is for real and therefore to concentrate on the peculiar humour.

A curse put on a card-sharp in 1780 by a man dying in a dignified manner from an utterly ghastly wound suffered after a ferocious fencing duel (not quite!) comes round to haunt the then present day blood-denizens of London, involving swindling and murder. Eventually they all have Strange Interludes in recalling their ancestors' shenanigans in a deliciously bizarre climax. Using a similar theme The Ghost Goes West from the same year did it so much better, and Hollywood also did it better many times over, with I Married A Witch and The Time Of Their Lives to name but two. Eric Portman and his beautiful speaking voice were badly used in 1780 and one can only assume he had a better time of it in 1935 because we don't find out. It's poe-sh talking scummy Constable Harker's film though, he and his knockabout sometimes awkward quips with fellow artiste shoplifter Binnie Hale run throughout the picture – no matter how much it appears they don't get on they're from the same class and from the same class as most of the cinema audience so you know how it should conclude. Favourite bizarre bits: the duel, if I may be so bold as to call it that; Harker's own prosecution of Hale in the courtroom to the court's condescending amusement; the music hall diversion but with Harry Tate waiting outside; the final thirty minutes back at the house where the trouble originally began – and why is Gibb McLaughlin being even more arch than usual; Donald Wolfit's startling final appearance and the characters' amazing coincidental memory recall.

After it's warmed up it's interesting and atmospheric but episodic with no belly-laughs (even at the film) – if unaltered from the play I wonder again how the original theatre audience received it. Sloppy as it is I enjoyed it and sometimes for the right reasons.