Mabel Terry-Lewis Movies
- 1944
This drama was faithfully adapted from a popular play and features many of the original actors. It is the story of how a carefully selected group of people prepare to live in the "ideal" city, a place totally different from the cities they are used to. As they get ready, each one presents his or her thoughts about the upcoming adventure; they also discuss their most beloved ideals. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mabel Terry-Lewis, Frances Rowe, (more)
- 1943
Tartu--or more formally, The Adventures of Tartu--stars Robert Donat as a Rumanian-born British spy, dispatched to Czechoslovakia during World War II. Posing as an ineffectual milquetoast, Donat is hired as a chemist in a Nazi-controlled poison gas factory. Working in concert with the Underground, our hero spends his off-hours dismantling the Nazi operation. Then he has to figure a way to get out of Czechoslovakia as adroitly as he got in. Adventures of Tartu was filmed at MGM's British studios (it was Metro's first British production in two years), with an American director but with a full cadre of English acting talent: Donat, Valerie Hobson, Glynis Johns, etc. The Teutonic villain is played by Walter Rilla, whose son Wolf Rilla later became a prominent British director. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Donat, Valerie Hobson, (more)
- 1939
Adapted from the best-selling novel by K. J. Benes, A Stolen Life serves as a tour de force for German actress Elizabeth Bergner, whose husband Paul Czinner directed the film. Bergner stars as identical twins Sylvina and Martina, whose mild sibling rivalry intensifies when one of the girls tricks the other's sweetheart Alan McKenzie (Michael Redgrave) into proposing to the wrong twin. While Alan is away on business, his new bride and her sister go off on a yachting expedition. A storm at sea capsizes the vessel, wherupon one of the twins-the unmarried one--is drowned. As the other girl recovers, she finds that everyone assumes that she's actually her lookalike sister. Assuming the dead woman's identity, the surviving girl hopes to resume her pre-marital romance with Alan-only to discover that her sister had been carrying on a clandestine affair. If the plot sounds familiar, it's because A Stolen Life was remade in 1946 with Bette Davis as the sisters and Glenn Ford as the confused husband. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Wilfred Lawson, Elisabeth Bergner, (more)
Alfred Hitchcock directed this disappointing misfire, memorable solely for the fact is that it is the final film from Hitchcock's early British period before he left for the Hollywood studio system and David O. Selznick. In the England of the 1800s, a group of ruthless smugglers, led by Sir Humphrey Pengallon (Charles Laughton), prey on ships by blacking out warning signals. When the ships crash on the rocks, the nefarious group loots the remains and kills the sailors. The plot kicks in when the beautiful orphan Mary Yelland (Maureen O'Hara) goes to visit her uncle Joss Merlyn (Leslie Banks) at a creepy hotel called the Jamaica Inn, the home of the gang of smugglers. Mary doesn't realize that Uncle Joss is one of them. Meanwhile, Lloyd's of London sends one of their ablest men, Jem Trahearne (Robert Newton), to investigate the recurring shipwrecks. Jem checks in to the Jamaica Inn, and when the coven of smugglers finds out who he is, they capture him and attempt to kill him. But Mary comes to his rescue and saves him. Through the inn, the smugglers try to recapture Jem -- along with Mary. Thrown together by dire circumstances, the two fall in love. Meanwhile, all the shenanigans occurring at the Jamaica Inn appear to be driving Pengallon insane. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, (more)
- 1937
Based on an Edgar Wallace novel, this is an involved story of the consequences within the underworld of a big-time diamond heist. It also tells the story of a disgraced inspector who is trying to catch the infamous jewel fence known as the "Squeaker" to help clear his name again. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi
- Starring:
- Edmund Lowe, Sebastian Shaw, (more)
- 1936
Dishonor Bright draws upon the talents of two master farceurs from Britain's Aldwych Theatre, Tom Walls (star-director) and Ben Travers (screenwriter). A correspondent in a bitter divorce case, Stephen Champion (Walls), ends up marrying the defendant, Ivy Lamb (Dinah Churchill), though he still carries a torch for Stella (Betty Stockfield), the wife of the plaintiff's attorney (Cecil Parker). While on an Alpine honeymoon with Ivy, Stephen tries to rescue Stella from the libidinous machinations of rakish Lisle (George Sanders, in one of his earliest major roles). In so doing, Stephen not only nearly messes up Stella's marriage but his own as well. Hollywood's Eugene Pallette offers a well-rounded characterization (in every sense of the word) as a duplicitous American tourist. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tom Walls, Eugene Pallette, (more)
This film from director Harold Young is the second big-screen adaptation of Baroness Emmuska Orczy's 1905 novel The Scarlet Pimpernel. Leslie Howard stars as Sir Percy Blakeney, a British aristocrat who rescues innocent victims of the French Revolution under the guise of The Scarlet Pimpernel while maintaining the identity of a foppish dandy by day. Even his wife, Lady Marguerite Blakeney (Merle Oberon), is unaware of Percy's heroic alter-ego as he and his band of likeminded masked men save countless people from the guillotine. Perhaps the most famous adaptation of the classic book, The Scarlet Pimpernel would later be lampooned in 1966's Don't Lose Your Head. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- Starring:
- Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, (more)
- 1934
In this crime drama, two gangs of criminals compete to find a cache of purloined jewels. Both gangs really want them and use all sorts of devious tricks to beat out their rivals. Eventually both converge at a creepy old mansion. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1930
One of several British films produced and directed by American moviemaker Larry Trimble, Caste gets under way when the hero, played by Sir John Hare, defies his family's wishes and marries a chorus girl. Disgraced in the eyes of "proper" society, Hare deserts his new wife and joins his regiment in South Africa, where he is later reported to be missing in action. Meanwhile, Hare's wife returns to her old neighborhood and bears her husband's child. Several years pass before the very-much-alive Hare returns to entreat his wife's forgiveness. Though billed first, the delightful Peggy Hyland was wasted in the role of the hero's wisecracking sister. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
