Dvd/150: 21 DAYS (Basil Dean, 1940)

Larry Durrant has failed in business but made good with his girlfriend Wanda, but one night her past reappears in the shape of her slimy husband.  He pulls a knife on them and in the struggle Larry accidentally kills him. 

Larry dumps the body but loses incriminating gloves which are found by a tramp, a lapsed priest. Larry visits his older brother Keith, a successful barrister, who is shocked at Larry's dilemma but reveals that the tramp has been arrested for the murder.

Larry is consumed with guilt but, at Keith's suggestion, enjoys the three weeks until the trial and marries Wanda.  Larry decides that he will confess his guilt when the trial ends - but the priest is found guilty...

The hero's guilt shows Graham Greene's involvement and Basil Dean's taut direction just survives the vicissitudes of time.  Of the leads, Leslie Banks outshines stagey Olivier and under-used Vivien.

Shelf or charity shop?  One for the Vivien archive - by the way, the film was shot in 1937 but was held back from distribution until 1940 to capitalize on Vivien's sudden star power thanks to GONE WITH THE WIND...

Dvd/150: THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (Alfred Hitchcock, 1934)

Hitchcock's 1950s remake might be better known but his original version is a more rewarding experience.  Cracking along at 75 minutes, it's packed with elegantly easy charm from the principals, eye-catching supporting roles and suspense and sly humour mixed with the lightest touch.

 

A husband and wife become enmeshed on their holiday in a plot to kill a foreign leader by a gang of assassins who kidnap their daughter.  Back in London, they discover she is being held in a church hall in Wapping.

 

Leslie Banks, Edna Best and Nova Pilbeam are all fine as the family with Banks almost being a dry run for Robert Donat in the THE 39 STEPS the following year.

Dominating the film however is Peter Lorre as the gang leader.  What is remarkable is that his English was so poor (he had fled Nazi Germany only the year before) that he learned his lines phonetically.

 

Shelf or charity shop?  Deffo Shelf!