Cyril Maude Movies
- 1947
Director Anthony Asquith's first postwar effort, While the Sun Shines was based on a play by frequent Asquith collaborator Terence Rattigan. Set in WW2 London, the story revolves around Lady Elizabeth Randall (Barbara White), who is serving her country as an Air Force corporal. While en route to her marriage to the Earl of Harpenden (Ronald Howard, in his screen debut), Lady Elizabeth is wooed a French expatriate named Colbert (Michael Allen) and American lieutenant Joe Mulvaney (the inevitable Bonar Colleano). The resulting series of sexual misunderstandings puts Lady Elizabeth's military career-not to mention her impending marriage-in dire jeopardy. A harmless romantic farce, While the Sun Shines is generally out of favor with Anthony Asquith's many adherents. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara White, Ronald Squire, (more)
- 1935
Venerable stage favorite Cyril Maude is pretty much the whole show in the British comedy-melodrama Heat Wave. Maude plays a cranky old vegetable trader who pulls into port at a mythical banana republic. Loudly announcing that he has potatoes, onions and cabbage for sale, the old man unwittingly spouts out the code words for a gun-running operation. He is hired by a revolutionary group to supply guns for an impending insurrection, but of course he thinks he's merely making another produce run. When Maude shows up at his appointed destination with vegetables instead of rifles, it looks like he's a goner, but through a series of logic-defying complications, our hero not only saves his own skin, but also those of the Presidente and his pretty daughter. Director Maurice Elvey manages to find a spot or two to showcase the talents of British radio singer Les Allen, here cast as the heroine's sweetheart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Albert Burdon, Cyril Maude, (more)
- 1934
Best known today as the wife of famed caricaturist Al Hirschfield, actress Dolly Haas enjoyed a long and fruitful career in England and Europe. One of Haas' best vehicles is the gender-bending British farce Girls Will Be Boys, in which she plays the granddaughter of the Duke of Bridgewater (Cyril Maude). Because her name in the film is "Pat," our heroine is assumed to be a boy by her woman-hating grandpop, and she does nothing to dissuade him of this belief, dressing up in drag when she goes to meet him for the first time. The rest of the picture is a reverse Charley's Aunt, with Pat endeavoring to be "one of the guys" under the most trying of circumstances (yes, she even smokes a cigar at one point). For a one-joke film, Girls Will be Boys is surprisingly substantial, managing to keep the audience amused for 71 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolly Haas, Cyril Maude, (more)
- 1934
Hollywood movie-making is satirized in this comedy. The trouble begins when an American filmmaker decides to us a British army barracks and soldiers to add a realistic touch to his newest Foreign Legion film. The trouble is, the director is neither very good, nor well informed about military life, something that the brigadier general that helps the filmmaker is quick to point out. But this does not stop the director from trying to get the whole British army into the act. The real kicker is that the American film crew does not have permission to use the soldiers or the facilities. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlotte Greenwood, James Gleason, (more)
- 1933
In this comedy a widow pretends to be Lord Grossmith's philandering wife in order to get a handsome lawyer to fall in love with her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1931
In this British drama, a colonel is upset to learn that his daughter is planning to leave her dishwater-dull husband in favor of his male secretary. More trouble ensues when the colonel learns that his secretary is the son of his butler. He decides to end the affair and heads for Paris where he does just that. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Godfrey Tearle, Nora Swinburne, (more)
- 1930
George Cukor received his first film directorial credit for Grumpy, though he was contractually bound to share billing with Broadway director Cyril Gardner. Cyril Maude recreates his stage role as a cranky retired lawyer with the requisite 14-carat heart. The lawyer's daughter (Frances Dade) has a boyfriend who is accused of stealing a valuable diamond. Setting his nightcap and pacing around his living room in his pajamas, "Grumpy" solves the case. Adapted from the play by Horace Hodges and Thomas Percival, Grumpy was previously filmed in 1923 with Theodore Roberts in the title role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cyril Maude, Phillips Holmes, (more)
- 1915
This first feature-length version of Henrik Ibsen's 1867 stage epic Peer Gynt was based on the recent Broadway staging by Oliver Morosco. Written in the form of a narrative poem, the story concerns a reckless, irresponsible young man who manages to find success in the world in a variety of colorful professions, only to lose everything due to his many character flaws. Returning home to die, the aged Peer Gynt discovers that his childhood sweetheart Solveig (Myrtle Stedman), whom he had betrayed and abandoned years earlier, is still waiting for him. Though well into middle age, Cyril Maude successfully re-created his stage role as Peer Gynt, fully realizing every nuance of this fascinatingly amoral character. The huge supporting cast included 25-year-old Charles Ruggles, making his first screen appearance in the important role of the Button Moulder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
