Ian Hunter Movies

This romantic war drama takes its title from the 18th century Henry Carey song about a plucky but poor girl waiting for her love's seven years of indentured servitude to end so they can wed. Like the heroine in the song, Sally Winch (Gracie Fields), a singer in a café, is in love with a young man, George Miles (Ian Hunter) but must wait for him to return from the service in order to marry. However, George's letters stop coming, and Sally fears that her betrothed has been killed. That's just what George wants Sally to think, because the truth is that he has been crippled in battle and is ashamed to face her. Eventually, George is shipped home. He and Sally reconcile, but then the couple faces another challenge, Florrie Small (Florence Desmond), who wants to break up the happy couple. The fourth film to use the title of Carey's song but the first that was a talkie, Sally in Our Alley (1931) made a star of vaudevillian Fields. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

In this early talkie, Capt. Matt Denant (Gerald du Maurier) is a former war hero who intervenes when he sees a crooked detective threatening a woman on the street. Denant and the detective soon fall into a brawl, and the detective is accidentally killed. Sentenced to five years in prison at hard labor, Denant finds that he cannot stand the indignities of life behind bars and escapes. A number of friends and compassionate strangers help him hide from the law, but when Denant goes into hiding in a church, he puts the pastor in the difficult position of having to lie about him in order to protect his safety. Escape was the first production for RKO Radio Pictures' British branch; leading man Gerald du Maurier is the father of famed novelist Daphne du Maurier. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

British filmmaker Maurice Elvey spent most of the late 1920s collaborating with directors brought in from the London stage. In The Physician, Elvey's associate was Gareth Gundrey, who'd directed the Henry Arthur Jones play on which the film was based. Temperance lecturer Walter Amphiel (Miles Mander) is not too thrilled to discover he has an illegitimate son. Even worse is the fact that Walter's fiancee Edana Hinde (Elga Bank) is a "closet" drunkard, imbibing everything with even a hint of alcohol. The humor is predicated on Hinde's intoxication and Walter's efforts to do right by his son -- in other words, there's hardly a laugh in the carload. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Yes, Tallulah Bankhead, she of the mighty-low voice and outrageous private life, did appear in silent films. The British His House in Order was lensed in 1928, at a time when Tallu was knocking 'em dead on the London stage. Ms. Bankhead plays a socialite who falls in love with handsome Ian Hunter. Our Heroine is caught in the middle when Hunter's wealthy father, David Hawthorne, raises Holy Ned upon finding that his son is illegitimate. His House in Order was adapted from a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the early stages of his directing career, Alfred Hitchcock made a number of hackneyed studio films which barely resemble the works he would go on to direct. The society drama Easy Virtue is one of the nine silent movies Hitchcock directed. The film opens with Larita Filton posing for her portrait in an artist's studio. The behavior of her boorish, philandering husband, Aubrey Filton, drives her into the artist's arms where her husband discovers her. In the melee that follows, the artist shoots the husband, wounding but not killing him. Aubrey sues for divorce and Larita falls from grace in the courtroom while journalists feed the public a salaciously inflated account. Ruined, Larita flees to the south of France and meets John Whittaker, a young, upstanding British man. They fall in love, marry, and the happy couple returns to England to mummy. Mother Whittaker, a Victorian in the modern age, strenuously opposes the union and upbraids John for bringing scandal upon the family name. Neither John nor his father has the strength to withstand Mother Whittaker's onslaught, and the film, and Larita, end miserably. Hitchcock does one of his wordless cameos in the film. ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide

A novel by Douglas Walshe was the source of the British meller Girl of London. Genevieve Townsend plays Lil, the much abused stepdaughter of narcotics-ring head George Duncan (Harvey Braban). Lil is rescued from iniquity by Peter Horniman (Ian Hunter), the disowned son of a British politician (Edward Irwin). Together, Lil and Peter seek out a new life, despite the differences in their stations in life and their checkered pasts. Not exactly a textbook example of subtlety, Girl of London is given class and stature by the performances of its stars and the direction of Henry Edwards. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Arthur Conan Doyle's super sleuth Sherlock Holmes (Eille Norwood) and his assistant Dr. Watson become the hunted rather than the hunters in this thrilling mystery. The crooks give chase in an auto, trying to catch the duo as they speed down the Thames in a motorboat. Isobel Elsom, Fred Raynham, and Arthur M. Cullin co-star. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide