Elliot Mason Movies

Future Dr. Who star William Hartnell heads the cast of the 1949 sociopolitical melodrama The Agitator. Set in a British industrial town, the film stars Hartnell as idealistic union organizer Peter Pottinger. His value as an agitator is compromised when Peter falls heir to the very factory where he works. Now that he's "Capital," Peter finds that he hasn't a friend in the world: his old co-workers despise him for what he represents, while his new colleagues can't forget his previous radicalism. Perhaps to avoid movie-industry ramifications, Capital and Labor are treated with equal fairness in The Agitator. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

English actor Clive Brook's only directorial effort, On Approval, is based upon Frederick Lonsdale's frothy 1926 play, though reset in the late 19th century. Brook plays George, a titled duke whose wealth has largely been spent but who has no intention of settling further into genteel poverty. George is enormously appealing to Helen (played by Googie Withers), a good-natured American heiress, and is equally appalling to Maria (Bea Lillie), an Englishwoman of considerable means. The imperious Maria is dating the eternally devoted Richard (Roland Culver), who worships her. Maria decides that she will marry Richard -- after he spends a month with her in a secluded Scottish castle, where she will try him out "on approval." Maria, however, does not intend to discover whether they are suitable for all aspects of marriage; every night he is to row across the loch and spend his nights at a local inn. Neither Maria nor Richard will lack for company, though, as George and Helen invite themselves along. Things get complicated when it turns out that there are no rooms available at the inn, leaving the men to share the castle with the women -- a prospect that so horrifies the servants that they promptly leave the two couples high and dry. Left to their own devices, the foursome get to know each other -- and they don't necessarily like what they find. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi

When the bagpipes play, death will follow in this spooky comedy set in a dank and creepy Scottish castle during WW II. It begins when a school teacher at a London boy's academy must evacuate his charges to the castle. There they hear the legend of the deadly pipes. Sure enough their mournful call is heard and one of the boys dies. They cry again and another dies. It is in when the pipes are blown a third time that the headmaster solves the mystery: it is not a phantom killing the lads, but a German sympathizer. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A delightful film that begs to be rediscovered, Return to Yesterday was adapted from Goodness, How Sad, a play by Robert Morley. Clive Brook is ideally cast as Robert Maine, a famous movie star who longs for the simpler days before he became the idol of millions-and before he was trapped into a loveless marriage with his present wife. Maine takes a sentimental journey to the provincial repertory theatre where he got his first break, only to discover that the little troupe is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Without revealing his true identity, he joins the actors and helps to get them over their financial hump. He also happens to fall in love with ingenue Carol Sande (Anna Lee, the wife of director Robert Stevenson), but realizes eventually that she will be better off without him. Dame May Whitty heads the hand-picked supporting cast as Mrs. Truscott, the troupe's garrulous character woman, who is wise enough not to say anything when she overhears Maine letting Carol down gently by replaying a scene from one of his earlier stage triumphs. Long ignored by movie historians, Return to Yesterday was given an honored spot in William K. Everson's affectionate volume Love in the Film (1979). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

What a combination! Break the News boasted the talents of English stage star Jack Buchanan, French entertainer Maurice Chevalier, legendary director Rene Clair, and songwriter Cole Porter. But what should have made for dynamite entertainment, fizzled in the eyes of disappointed contemporary reviewers. Buchanan and Chevalier play a song and dance team that is getting nowhere fast. In an effort to jump-start their flagging careers, the two dream up an elaborate scheme that begins when Buchanan 'mysteriously' vanishes. Soon afterward Chevalier turns himself in, claiming that he killed his partner, fully aware that Buchanan is actually hiding out in a Balkan village and will magically reappear at the crucial moment. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the jailed Chevalier, poor Buchanan has been captured by revolutionaries who have mistaken him for an enemy general. Will he escape in time to save Chevalier from final justice? The film's source material, a novel by Loic de Gouriadic, has been re-filmed several times, most recently as The Art of Love (65) with James Garner and Dick Van Dyke. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

There's no folly like a Blind Folly, as scripters H.F. Maltby and John Hunter strive to prove in this British comedy. Gus McNaughton plays the head of a criminal gang who heads to the spot where they had long before hidden their stolen loot. Alas, the cache of cash is now sequestered somewhere in a roadhouse that has been built on the site of the hiding place. Now the criminals are forced to steal what they've already stolen--and to keep Clifford Mollison, the inn's current owner, in the dark. Lilli Palmer provides decoration as Mollison's girlfriend. Blind Folly was distributed in the United Kingdom by RKO British. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A once-popular stage melodrama by Gordon Sherry was the source for the 1938 British film Black Limelight. Raymond Massey plays Peter Charrington, who early in the proceedings is charged with murder. Escaping from the authorities, Peter desperately tries to keep in touch with his distraught wife Mary (Joan Marion), who believes in his innocence. Meanwhile, an overly unctuous fellow named Lawrence Crawford (Walter Hudd) watches from the sidelines as Peter eludes the police. Crawford has a vested interest in the outcome of the chase; he is, after all, the real murderer. Reviewers in 1938 enjoyed Black Limelight, but carped over the fact that neither Raymond Massey nor Joan Marion seemed inclined to scale down their stage characterizations for the more intimate demands of the screen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this drama, set in 1842 England, an independent young woman living with a minister and his wife defies them and goes against their wishes to see Queen Victoria in Edinburgh. While there, she falls in love with a lieutenant and finds her real mother, an actress. With the latter encounter, the woman is really surprised as her guardians had told her that her mother had died when she was quite young. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this actioner, a prisoner must break out in time to keep his wife, who has involved herself with a creepy gang, from selling their son to a rich family who has just lost their own child. He succeeds, but then must find his son and the new family. He locates them aboard their yacht. There he begins to realize that the boy is far better off with them and he returns to prison. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi