Cyril Raymond Movies

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

In this funny romance, a nobleman finds himself infatuated with a show girl and be impersonating a stage hand so he can be near her. He also wants to impress the girl's overprotective mother who does not know that her daughter is a dancer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Criminal at Large in this quota quickie murders his victims in the dark of night. There seems to be a pattern to the killer's activities, but darned if Chief Inspector Tanner (Norman McKinnel) can figure it out. It looks as though dilettante sleuth Lord Lebanon (Emlyn Williams) will have to come to Scotland Yard's rescue, as the killer stalks his prey in a musty old castle. Criminal at Large was based on Edgar Wallace's stage play The Frightened Lady (which was also the film's alternate title). Wallace also worked on the screenplay -- one of his final assignments before his untimely death in 1933. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

On the surface just another quota quickie, Condemned to Death turned out to be quite a gem for those lucky enough to see it back in 1932. Taking a respite from his duties as moviedom's Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Wontner plays an incorruptible judge who sentences a criminal genius to the gallows. The villain then proceeds to hypnotize Wontner into murdering the jurors responsible for his convictions! Unaware of his crimes, Wontner is confronted with the evidence by Scotland Yard inspector Cyril Raymond, who has the decency to permit the good gray judge to commit suicide rather than face public disgrace and humiliation. Condemned to Death was based on Jack o' Lantern, a play by George Goodchild. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a mining engineer is preparing to leave his recent South American job and return to England when he receives a depressing letter from his wife telling him that she has found a new lover with whom she wants to run away with. While her husband makes the long voyage home, the wife changes her mind. She decides to break it off with her lover, but en route to his hotel has a car wreck and is taken to the hotel by someone else. Suddenly the jealous husband arrives. Knowing only that she has been having an affair, the husband kills the lover. During the trial, his wife testifies on his behalf and admits her wrong doing. He is given a shorter sentence. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When bumbling private eye Kendall investigates a case of stolen jewels he finds that the police inspector is at the head of the heist. ~ All Movie Guide

Transatlantic Tunnel is the English-language version of the 1932 French-German speculative drama The Tunnel. Set sometime in the future (complete with two-way televisions, art-deco airships and self-propelled automobiles), the film stars Richard Dix as McAllen, a visionary architect who devotes his life to the construction of a tunnel linking the United States with England. Despite devastating professional and personal setbacks, including the death of his own son in a tunnel cave-in, nothing dissuades Dix from completing the project. Guest stars Walter Huston and George Arliss are cast respectively as the American President and the British Prime Minister, roles that they'd played before on several occasions. Like William Cameron Menzie's Things to Come, the film is more impressive for its futuristic sets and state-of-the-art special effects than for its dramatic content. Originally released at 94 minutes, Transatlantic Tunnel is currently available only in its 70-minute reissue form. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Accused is a British melodrama starring American actor (and confirmed Anglophile) Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Somewhat incongruously cast as an Apache dancer, Fairbanks and his dance partner/wife Dolores Del Rio headline a Paris musical. Fairbanks becomes the unwilling target for the attentions of performer Florence Desmond (the famed British impressionist, here playing a hateful adventuress). Desmond is later murdered with the dagger used by Fairbanks and his wife in their act, and Dolores is accused of the crime. A florid court trial unmasks the real killer. Zoe Akins, a prominent playwright of the 1920s whose once-celebrated works seem somewhat childish today, was one of the scenarists of Accused. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this satire of British-American relations, Edward G. Robinson stars as Dan Armstrong, a hard-sell American saleman whose company sends him to England to learn how to tone down his act. There he meets some distant relatives, the aristocrats Sir Peter and Lady Challoner (Arthur Wontner and Annie Esmond). They invite him to their mansion for the weekend, where among the house guests are the penniless aristocrats the Duke and Duchess of Glenavon (Nigel Bruce and Constance Collier) and their daughter Lady Patricia (Luli Deste), as well as a conniving stockbroker, Henry Graham Manningdale (Ralph Richardson). The Duke and Duchess own only an apparently worthless mine in Rhodesia that supposedly contains a metal called magnelite. Manningdale says that he will develop the mine in exchange for permission to marry Lady Patricia. Armstrong also has designs on Patricia, however, and he engineers a scheme to start a company and sell stock in the mine. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

In this farce, a loving husband spending his first night apart from his wife in seven years goes out with a friend to get drunk. He wakes up in the apartment of a strange woman and is arrested for possessing forged bank notes. The only way he can prove his innocence is to reveal information which will let his wife know what has been going on. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide

The Spy In Black is the story of a German World War I submarine captain (Conrad Veidt) who is given a mission to discover British intelligence secrets. Once he arrives in the Orkney Islands, he meets up with a female schoolteacher (Valerie Hobson), who happens to be a German agent. Veidt falls in love with Hobson before discovering she's actually a double agent for the British. In America, Spy in Black was originally released under the title U-Boat 29. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide