Frederick Lonsdale Movies

The Law and the Lady is the third film version of the venerable Frederick Lonsdale stage play The Last of Mrs. Cheyney. Greer Garson follows in the footsteps of Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford as a beautiful confidence trickster, working in concert with a suave jewel thief (Michael Wilding). Jane Hoskins (Garson) inveigles herself into the household of San Francisco dowager Warton (Marjorie Main), where she and her accomplice intend to take their feisty hostess for everything she's got. Thanks to censorial intervention, many of the sharper satirical edges of the Lonsdale original have been dulled by sentiment and pathos. Still, any film that offers Greer Garson as a not-so-nice lady is well worth having. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old manor house in London, built in 1804 by a British admiral (C. Aubrey Smith) and blitzed in 1940 by one Adolf Hitler. Through the portals of this house pass a vast array of Britons, from high-born to low. The earliest scenes involve gay blade Lt. William Trimble (Ray Milland), wronged country-girl Susan (Anna Neagle), and wicked landowner Ambrose Pomfret (Claude Rains). We move on to a comic interlude involving dotty Mr. Simpson (Reginald Owen), eternally drunken butler Bellamy (Charles Laughton), and cockney plumbers Mr. Dabb (Cedric Hardwicke) and Wilkins (Buster Keaton). Maidservant Jenny (Ida Lupino) takes over the plot during the Boer War era, while the World War I sequence finds the house converted into a way-station for soldiers (including Robert Cummings) and anxious families (including Roland Young and Gladys Cooper). Finally we arrive in 1940, with American Gates Pomfret (Kent Smith) and lady-of-the-house Lesley Trimble (Ruth Warrick) surveying the bombed-out manor, and exulting over the fact that the portrait of the home's founder, Adm. Eustace Trimble (Smith), has remained intact -- symbolic proof of England's durability in its darkest hours. The huge cast includes Dame May Whitty, Edward Everett Horton, Wendy Barrie, Merle Oberon, Nigel Bruce, Richard Haydn, Donald Crisp, and a host of others -- some appearing in sizeable roles, others (like Arthur Treacher and Patric Knowles) willingly accepting one-scene bits, simply to participate in the undertaking. Seven directors and 21 writers were also swept up in the project. Forever and a Day was supposed to have been withdrawn from circulation after the war and its prints destroyed so that no one could profit from what was supposed to have been an act of industry charity. Happily for future generations, prints have survived and are now safely preserved. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Producer and director (Alexander Korda) followed up The Private Life of Henry VIII (one of the first internationally successful British films) with this historical comedy. After years in exile, the great lover Don Juan (Douglas Fairbanks) returns to Seville, the city of his salad days. However, Don Juan is now married and middle-aged, and his days as a spoiler of women seem to be behind him. When he learns that a young man in town (Barry McKay) has been posing as him and making time with the local ladies, Don decides to prove who the great lover truly is and attempts the seduction of Antonia (Merle Oberon), a beautiful dancer. However, Don's doctor informs him that girl-hunting will tax his fragile health, and his wife Dolores (Benita Hume) will no longer turn a blind eye to his infidelity. When the impostor is killed by a jealous husband, Don is relieved, as his "death" allows him to retire from his career as a rake with his reputation intact. But when the old itch returns, Don makes the sad discovery that if he can't convince women he's Don Juan, they simply aren't interested in him. The Private Life of Don Juan provided one of the few speaking roles for silent screen swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks, and proved to be his last picture. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this comedy, a mischievous wife begins tippling too much and hanging out with bogus blue-bloods and an adulterer who wants her. When her husband finds out, he teaches her a lesson. First he hires an actress to pretend to be a call-girl. He then sends the girl to one of the high-society parties to make the wife jealous. The ploy works and the chastened wife returns to her husband and her regular life. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The crackerjack director/cinematographer team of Harry Lachman and Rudolph Mate (Dante's Inferno, Our Relations) brought an extra veneer of class to the 1932 Gertrude Lawrence vehicle Aren't We All. She plays a shy and retiring lass who harbors a secret past indiscretion. Her "shameful" secret is revealed just as she plans to marry wealthy Owen Nares. The future husband expresses outrage, but his father Hugh Wakefield comes to Lawrence's rescue by exposing one or two of Nares' past peccadillos, and by inviting the girl's former lover to state his case. This British drawing room comedy was based on a stage play by the prolific Frederick Lonsdale. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This bedroom farce was originally a play that centers on an unhappily married couple looking to change their lives. When they meet a similar couple, the four decide to trade mates for a while. Chaos erupts when the two husbands get drunk and begin thinking that each is insulting the wife of the other. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Though not as well known as the 1944 remake (which was directed by its star, Clive Brook), this first adaptation of Frederick Lonsdale's stage comedy On Approval was a worthwhile production in its own right. Tom Walls (who, like Brook, also directed) stars as George, the impoverished Duke of Bristol. In hopes of maintaining his lavish lifestyle, George talks American heiress Marie Wislak (Yvonne Arnaud) into a 30-day "trial marriage." This requires both George and Marie to exchange sweethearts, an arrangement that leads to one hilarious situation after another. The fact that neither hero nor heroine are the traditional sympathetic types adds a pinch of tangy spice to the stew. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This early talkie was based on Frederick Lonsdale's successful Broadway play. Fay Cheyney (Norma Shearer) is a cunning jewel thief who impersonates a wealthy widow as she travels to Monte Carlo, planning on stealing a fortune in pearls from one Mrs. Webley (Maude Turner Gordon); Fay's henchmen also travel with her, posing as her servants as they help her plan the heist. However, Fay has a change of plans when she meets Lord Arthur Dilling (Basil Rathbone), who is wealthy, handsome, titled, and Mrs. Webley's nephew. Fay and Arthur soon become infatuated with each other, and Fay puts her plans on hold as she begins to travel in his privileged social circle; however, when she's invited to a private soiree at Mrs. Webley's mansion, the temptation is too great, and she attempts to steal the pearls. However, she's caught in the act by Arthur, who offers to make a deal -- if Fay will sleep with him, he won't tell Mrs. Webley that she's a fraud. Fay is taken aback by this affront to her honor, and instead confesses to Mrs. Webley and her assembled guests that she is not who she has purported to be. Shocked, the assembled socialites decide to turn her in to the police, until Lord Elton (Herbert Bunston) admits that he wrote Fay an indiscreet letter that had incriminating information about many of their friends. With Fay in a position to blackmail her blue-blooded acquaintances, they attempt to buy her silence, but Fay proves that despite her criminal history, she has her principles. The Last of Mrs. Cheyney was remade in 1937 (with Joan Crawford in the lead), and again in 1951 as The Law and the Lady, starring Greer Garson. A German version also appeared in 1961. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Frederick Lonsdale's witty 1924 play Aren't We All was turned into a vehicle for the debonair Adolphe Menjou by Paramount the following year. Menjou played Walter Grenham, a confirmed boulevardier stranded in Havana with his best friend's (Kenneth MacKenna) flirtatious wife (Lillian Rich). Nothing untoward happens -- Menjou is more attracted to sophisticated Aileen Pringle) -- but MacKenna, in desperation, begins an affair with a show girl (Kitty Kelly in her only silent film). Bedroom doors are slammed and a suspicious pair of gloves keep reappearing at every inconvenient moment but, in typical Lonsdale fashion, everything is straightened out in the end. Although Broadway dancer made a welcomed cameo, most critic found the comedy too much Menjou and too little Lonsdale. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi