Patric Knowles Movies

In this melodrama set within an Irish hospital, a handsome young physicician is pursued by two women. He is attracted to one of them, but as she has expensive taste he does not feel he can afford to be with her. The other woman is a manipulator and tricks him into an engagement with a kiss. The poor physician is utterly confused and so heads into the country to help with a typhoid epidemic. As soon as it is halted, he finds that he himself has the dread disease. All his colleagues believe he is a goner, but true love prevails and the first one takes care of him until his health is restored. Often cited as the first "talkie" to feature a primarily Irish cast. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

His Hollywood career a thing of the past, director Herbert Brenon returned to his native England in 1934, where he continued making films until his retirement in 1940. Brenon's first project upon his arrival in London was the feature-length documentary Royal Cavalcade. Covering a 25-year period, the film is an encapsulation of the comings and goings of the British empire since the 1910 coronation of King George V. The highlights, drawn from the newsreel files of several English and European archives, include Captain Scott's arrival at the South Pole (and the tragic aftermath), the First World War, the Roaring 20s, and the Depression. Of special interest to show-biz buffs is the footage of the first Royal Command Performance at the Palace in 1911, featuring such matchless performers as Anna Pavlova and George Robey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This epic costume drama is set in turn-of-the-century Turkey and chronicles the ruthless reign of a paranoid ruler who begins killing everyone he suspects of treachery against him. The despot's loyal chief of police obediently enacts his master's bloody whims until he too stands accused of conspiracy and is sentenced to die. To save him, his lover, a Viennese actress, offers to join the despot's harem. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The son must pay for the crimes of the father when art-dealer Samson frames the son of the man who ruined his career. Samson sets the boy up to take the blame for the theft of $2,500--taken from Samson's gallery safe. Doubly unfortunate for Samson, the son has an alibi in Samson's wife, who is having an affair with the boy. ~ All Movie Guide

John Gillespie is a publisher enduring a crisis: his partner has left town with all the firm's money, and Gillespie will be ruined if he cannot come up with capital quickly. With no other resources, he turns to his wealthy Aunt Mary, who is decidedly unsympathetic to his plight and refuses to loan him the money. Full of despair, Gillespie hails a taxi -- and discovers a windfall of £2,000 therein. Wary of what could happen, he hides it in a rented room and decides not to take his wife into his confidence, telling her that he has taken the room to conduct business. In the midst of all this, his aunt is discovered dead under suspicious circumstances, with her safe found to have been broken into. Gillespie is interviewed by the police and -- nervous and afraid that he would have to give up the £2,000 he discovered in the taxi if he tells them the truth --he is unable to account for his actions and is promptly arrested. With a charge of murder soon to be leveled at him, Gillespie finds himself relying on the efforts of a former servant to help prove his innocence. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Two's Company was based on Sydney Horler's stage comedy Romeo and Julia. The film's storyline is developed in parallel fashion, with the antics of American businessman B. G. Madison (Henry Holman) and his family and associates mirrored and sometimes anticipated by the behavior of Madison's British counterpart, The Earle of Warke (Morton Seiten), and his entourage. The ongoing rivalry between Madison and the Earle wreaks havoc on the romance between Madison's daughter Julia (Mary Brian) and Warke's son Jerry (Patric Knowles). Both families behave in stereotypical fashion, skewering both American and British manners and mores with fine impartiality. Two's Company was very much designed for a dual market, right down to the comedy relief: Ned Sparks for the American fans, Gordon Harker for the British patrons. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Kay Francis, Warner Bros.' resident "wronged woman," was the star of Give Me Your Heart. Francis plays a socialite whose illicit romance with married Patric Knowles results in a baby. When the father, a titled Englishman of means, declares that the child would be better off in his care, Ms. Francis suffers luxuriously in a series of fashionable evening gowns. She finds lasting happiness in the arms of attorney George Brent. Give Me Your Heart was based on Joyce Carey's stage play Sweet Aloes, and bore that title when released in Great Britain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Of the many film versions of Alfred Lord Tennyson's narrative poem, 1936's Charge of the Light Brigade has the least relationship to the facts concerning the famous 19th century British military blunder in the Crimea. Reflecting the popularity of 1935's Lives of A Bengal Lancer, the film uses the climactic charge as the culmination of events which begin in British India. Errol Flynn and Patric Knowles are cast as cavalry officers who are also brothers; both love Olivia De Havilland, but it is Knowles who wins out (this should tip us off that the rest of the film is pure fantasy). Indian potentate C. Henry Gordon, angered that the British government has cut off his subsidy, stages a revolt against the English settlements. Ordered on maneuvers, Flynn is unable to bring rescue troops to the besieged fort commanded by De Havilland's father. Gordon supervises the slaughter of every man, woman and child at the fort, then leaves India in the company of his Russian advisors. Flynn and his fellow Light Brigade lancers are then transferred to the Crimea--where, as luck would have it, Gordon is now ensconced with the Russians. Thirsting for revenge, Flynn falsifies an official order so that he and the Light Brigade can battle Gordon and his allies at Balaclava (thus are Britons Lord Cardigan and Lord Ragan, the actual instigators of the doomed charge, exonerated). As passages from the Tennyson poem are superimposed on the action, Flynn leads a suicidal charge against the Russians; he manages to kill the treacherous Gordon before being slain himself. Its dozens of historical inaccuracies aside, The Charge of the Light Brigade is rousing entertainment. Animal lovers be warned, however: several horses were killed during the climactic charge, a fact that compelled Hollywood (under the auspices of the ASPCA) to install safer and more stringent standards concerning the treatment of animals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bette Davis and Leslie Howard play an egotistical Broadway acting team famous for their romantic scenes. In truth, Davis and Howard are crazy about each other, but they spend so much time bickering that they never get around to marriage. The relationship is complicated by young heiress Olivia De Havilland, a fan who worships the ground Howard walks on. Howard tries to scare off the star-struck young lady by threatening her with seduction, but it turns out she enjoys the prospect of being seduced. Everything is straightened out by the climax, though Davis and Howard never quite get to the altar. It's Love I'm After is all the more enjoyable when one recalls the "serious" movie romances carried on by Leslie Howard with both Bette Davis (in The Petrified Forest) and Olivia De Havilland (in Gone with the Wind). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Choreographer Bobby Connolly and prolific screenwriter Crane Wilbur teamed up on the direction of Warner Bros.' The Patient in Room 18. Patric Knowles delivers a delightfully comic performance as Lance, an outwardly normal young man obsessed with detective stories. When his obsession threatens to lapse over into lunacy, Lance is sent to the hospital for a nice long rest. It isn't long before he gets mixed up in a genuine murder mystery, using his second-hand knowhow to solve the case. Up-and-coming Ann Sheridan is quite amusing as Lance's nurse and confidante, while the murderer is played by a fellow who is usually cast as the murder victim. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In order to avoid the material copyrighted by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. for his 1922 Robin Hood, the scripters of this Flynn version relied on several legendary episodes that had never before been filmed, notably the battle between Robin and Little John (Alan Hale Sr., who played this part three times in his long career) and the "piggy-back" episode between Robin and Friar Tuck (Eugene Pallette). The film ties together the various ancient anecdotes with a storyline bounded by the capture in Austria of Richard the Lionheart (Ian Hunter) on one end and Richard's triumphant return to England on the other. Robin Hood is already an outlaw at the outset of the film, while Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland) is initially part of the enemy camp, as one of Prince John's (Claude Rains) entourage. Marian warms up to Robin's fight against injustice (and to Robin himself), eventually becoming a trusted ally. James Cagney was originally announced for the role of Robin Hood, just before Cagney left Warner Bros. in a salary dispute. William Keighley was the original director, but he worked too slowly to suit the tight production schedule and was replaced by Michael Curtiz (both men receive screen credit). A lengthy opening jousting sequence was shot but removed from the final print; portions of this sequence show up as stock footage in the 1957 Warners film The Story of Mankind. The chestnut-colored Palomino horse ridden by de Havilland in the Sherwood Forest scenes later gained screen stardom as Roy Rogers' Trigger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This being a Republic picture, it should come as no surprise that Storm Over Bengal was filmed in its entirety in the San Fernando Valley. Within its concise 65 minutes, the film manages to accommodate a Bengal Lancers main plot, a romantic subplot, the obligatory coward who makes good, intrigue aplenty from a villainous Indian potentate, and an outsized climactic battle between the rebels and the British forces. Patric Knowles, previously one of the leads in the British-India epic Charge of the Light Brigade, heads the cast. Worth noting is the presence in the cast of Richard Cromwell as secondary romantic lead Neil Allison and Douglass Dumbrille as the despicable Khan. Three years earlier, Cromwell had been tortured by Dumbrille's minions in Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and he undergoes much the same treatment here-"just to make him feel at home" observed film historian Roger Dooley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide