Herbert Marshall Movies
British actor Herbert Marshall was born to a theatrical family, but initially had no intentions of a stage career himself. After graduating from St. Mary's College in Harrow, Marshall became an accounting clerk, turning to acting only when his job failed to interest him. With an equal lack of enthusiasm, Marshall joined a stock company in Brighton, making his stage debut in 1911; he ascended to stardom two years later in the evergreen stage farce, Brewster's Millions. Enlisting in the British Expeditionary Forces during World War I, Marshall was severely wounded and his leg was amputated. While this might normally have signalled the end of a theatrical career, Marshall was outfitted with a prosthesis and determined to make something of himself as an actor; he played a vast array of roles, his physical handicap slowing him down not one iota. In tandem with his first wife, actress Edna Best, Marshall worked on stage in a series of domestic comedies and dramas, then entered motion pictures with Mumsie (1927). His first talking film was the 1929 version of Somerset Maugham's The Letter, which he would eventually film twice, the first time in the role of the heroine's illicit lover, the second time (in 1940) as the cuckolded husband. With Ernst Lubitsch's frothy film Trouble in Paradise (1932), Marshall became a popular romantic lead. Easing gracefully into character parts, the actor continued working into the 1960s; he is probably best remembered for his portrayal of author Somerset Maugham in two separate films based on Maugham's works, The Moon and Sixpence (1942) and The Razor's Edge (1946). Alfred Hitchcock, who'd directed Marshall twice in films, showed the actor to good advantage on the Hitchcock TV series of the 1950s, casting Marshall in one episode as a washed-up matinee idol who wins a stage role on the basis of a totally fabricated life story. Marshall hardly needed to embroider on his real story of his life: he was married five times, and despite his gentlemanly demeanor managed to make occasional headlines thanks to his rambunctious social activities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1932
The racetrack provides the setting for this melodrama that centers upon the owner of a racehorse who is jilted by a conniving, money-grubbing young woman after his money runs out. Soon after leaving him, she marries the brother of the owner's lovely horsetrainer. At the same time, the owner's shady butler gets his grieving employer drunk and talks him into fixing the next race in order to restore his fortune. Fortunately, for the horse owner, things don't go as planned and at long last he finds true happiness. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1932
This romance, based on a surprisingly sophisticated story by Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne, teams up Herbert Marshall with his then-wife Edna Best. Best is Mary Price, deserted by her husband when he leaves England to seek his fortune during the Boer War in 1900. Destitute and desperate, she meets aspiring author Michael Rowe (Marshall) at a museum. Rowe offers to share what little money he has with her and soon a romance develops. They agree to marry, in hopes that her husband has disappeared for good. And, as the years pass, it seems like he has. Rowe becomes a successful and respected writer and he and Mary raise a son, David (Frank Lawton). On the night that David becomes engaged to pretty society girl Romo (Elizabeth Allan), however, Price (D.A. Clarke-Smith) reappears, and while the young couple is away, Rowe has a fight with Price, who dies at the scene from a heart attack. Michael and Mary are interrogated, but Scotland Yard never makes the connection between Price and Mary, and the investigators assume that Michael was merely protecting himself from an intruder. While the couple is off the hook legally, they feel it is morally necessary to come clean about their past in front of David and his fiancée. David is more than willing to forgive his parents their sins, and Romo stands by them, too. What could have been a tiresome subject is brought to life by the talent of all involved -- not only the actors, but also writers Angus MacPhail, Robert Stevenson, and Lajos Biro, who brought Milne's story to the screen. Stevenson, incidentally, would become one of Britain's most respected directors, and MacPhail would frequently work with Alfred Hitchcock -- though apparently not on The Man Who Knew Too Much, which gave Best one of her best screen roles. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Lawton, Herbert Marshall, (more)
- 1931
In this drawing room drama, an impetuous heiress goes on a cruise and ends up marrying a Latin gigolo on a whim. Her father then dies, and as soon as her devoted husband discovers that the old man died destitute, he takes off. Now the girl must work; she gets a job as her father's best friend's wife's social secretary. The former socialite finds herself tormented by her boss's rotten daughter. Even so, when the mean young woman finds herself involved in a murder, it is the ex-socialite who tries to help her cover up the crime. Later the heroine's conniving ex-husband tries to blackmail her boss with the information. Trouble ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudette Colbert, Herbert Marshall, (more)
- 1931
Based on a stage play by Edgar Wallace, The Calendar is set amongst Britain's horsey set. Herbert Marshall and his then-wife Edna Best star as a wealthy racehorse owner and his pretty trainer. After divesting Marshall of his millions, his mistress Anne Grey leaves him in favor of a younger, handsomer man. The hapless hero is then betrayed by his butler, who gets his master drunk and convinces him to throw the next race. Banned from the track by a jury of jockey's (the film's highlight), Marshall is afforded the opportunity to redeem himself and to settle old scores with those who've wronged him, thereby paving the way for a climactic clinch with his true love, Best. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Herbert Marshall, Edna Best, (more)
Alfred Hitchcock's second all-talkie thriller, Murder stars Herbert Marshall as pompous actor-manager Sir John Menier, a send-up of George DuMaurier. Summoned for jury duty, Sir John is one of 12 people who must decide the fate of Diana Baring (Norah Baring), a young actress on trial for murder. Though the girl is found guilty, Sir John believes that she's innocent and sets about to prove it on his own, exercising his actor's prerogative of adopting clever disguises in the course of his investigation. Along the way, he is obliged to entertain a pair of lower-class clods, Ted and Dulcie Markham (Edward Chapman and Phyllis Konstam), who help him stage an elaborate re-enactment of the crime. Based on Enter Sir John, a novel and play by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson, Murder was simultaneously filmed in a German version, with Alfred Abel replacing Herbert Marshall. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring, (more)
- 1929
The Letter was the first film version of the Somerset Maugham play of the same name. Broadway star Jeanne Eagels plays the wife of Reginald Owen, the owner of a Malayan rubber plantation. The film opens with Eagels shooting a man (Herbert Marshall) to death; she explains that the man had tried to assault her. It is assumed that the subsequent trial will go well for Eagels, who has the advantage of wealth and social position. But Eagels' lawyer (O.P. Heggie) learns of the existence of a letter sent to the dead man in which Eagels declares her undying love--thereby proving that the killing was not justified. At great personal expense, the lawyer buys back the letter from the dead man's wife, a grim native woman. Only after Eagels is found not guilty does she reveal her indiscretion to her husband. She tries to convince him that she will be a faithful wife in the future, but suddenly pulls back and violently declares "With all my heart--I still love the man I killed!" The Letter was remade in 1940 (with considerable censorial alterations) starring Bette Davis as the murderess and Herbert Marshall--the victim in the 1929 version--as her cuckolded husband. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeanne Eagels, O.P. Heggie, (more)
- 1928
One of the most controversial British films of the 1920s, Dawn is the story of World War 1 nurse and martyr Edith Cavell. Making a rare film appearance, Dame Sybil Thorndike stars as Cavell, who risked her life by rescuing British POWs from the Germans. Captured by the Kaiser's minions, Cavell was sentenced to be executed, an action that sparked an international outpouring of outrage, even from neutral nations. At the time Dawn was filmed, the world was at peace and the Germans were striving mightily to suppress their previous reputation as warmongers. Thanks to legal and political intervention, the film was heavily censored, then removed from distribution altogether (the official reason for the suppression was the film's startlingly brutal depiction of warfare). In 1939, with the threat of war once more looming over Britain, producer/director remade Dawn as Nurse Edith Cavell, with Anna Neagle in the starring role and with all the original film's anti-German sentiments intact. Both Dawn and its remake were based on a play by Reginald Berkeley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie Ault
- 1927
The great American character actress Pauline Frederick crossed the Big Pond to star in the British Mumsie. Ms. Frederick is the pivotal cog in this story of World War 1 espionage. A young gambler, who tries to stay out of the world conflict, ends up as a secret agent. He ends up betraying his country, much to the dismay of his beloved "Mumsie" (Ms. Frederick). In an emotionally hypercharged third act, Mumsie takes drastic measures to wipe clean the blot left by her traitorous son. Mumsie was based on a play by Edward Knoblock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pauline Frederick, Nelson Keys, (more)
