The Amateur Gentleman

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. produced and starred in The Amateur Gentleman for the British cinema. It was done in the mid 30s while Fairbanks and his father were in the United Kingdom.

Fairbanks is the son of innkeeper who is accused of robbery by some passersby of more rank. A most serious crime because robbery even of a small sum was a hanging offense.

The innkeeper Frank Pettingell was a former bare knuckles boxing champion and he's taught Fairbanks more than a few ring tricks. Enough so that it ingratiates Fairbanks into Regency society. The future George IV was a devotee of the manly art of self defense.

The villain here is Basil Sydney who plays a part that future British colony resident George Sanders would play over and over. The rich and titled who enjoyed his privileges to the hilt.

Elissa Landi another refugee from the American cinema is our leading lady. A future queen of British cinema Margaret Lockwood is down the cast list in a supporting role.

You have to admire the way Fairbanks gives Sydney the old comeuppance.

The Amateur Gentleman holds up well for today's audience..

Frank Pettingell had been a fine bare-knuckles boxer in his day, so much that he ran away with a noble lady. Now she is dead, he runs a public house and his son is Douglas Fairbanks Jr. When a noble party stays at the house, a watch is stolen, and Pettingell is found with it. He is carted off. Fairbanks and his friend, Gordon Harker have a single clue: a scrap of paper that implicates some one. They head off to London, where Fairbanks impersonates a member of the gentry and woos noble Elissa Landi, while they try to identify the writer of the note before Pettingell is hanged for the theft.

Fairbanks had set up his own company and was filming in England. He brought over Thornton Freeland and assembled a fine cast that includes Basil Sidney, Hugh Williams, Margaret Lockwood with June Duprez and Marius Goring in uncredited bits. Clemence Dane freely adapted the novel by Jeffrey Farnol. The Regency setting and combination of upper-crust luxury and lower-class filth is striking, and everyone works very hard. As a result, this pot-boiler remains quite watchable more than 80 years later.

I am an avid collector of Margaret Lockwood (ML) films and received "Once a Wicked Lady" a biography to read for my 62nd birthday recently.I have about 23 of ML's films and "Amateur Gentleman" was the latest addition.ML did not become a leading lady until 1938 when she filmed "Bank Holiday" and "The Lady Vanishes" and here in 1936, is in a support role playing a rather ditsy débutante.The film is set in Regency days, circa 1810, of Prince George soon to become in 1820 King George IV.Douglas Fairbanks Jnr.(DF) and ML renewed their professional association in 1939 in "Rulers of the Sea" when ML had a more substantial part more befitting to a leading lady in which she was excellent with Will Fyffe playing her father as he had done in "Owd Bob" (1938). The subject film has a rather dark theme set at a time when you could be hanged in the U.K. for stealing 5 shillings.The plot has already been adequately outlined by the only other user comment, so I will restrict my critique to the acting.Hugh Williams plays an addicted gambler at court and would again play opposite ML in Bank Holiday while Basil Sydney, usually cast in villainous roles, would appear with ML in "Jassy" (1947).The soundtrack is typical mid. 1930s quality and the film is throughout too dark i.e. not lit enough.I only rated it 6/10 as it has something of a "quota quickie" script quality and direction throughout but is just above mediocre.DF plays his usual handsome, athletic hero role but this time wins the leading lady while Hugh Williams runs off with ML.

The regency era being my favorite time period, I always check out movies set in those days. Sometimes - like here - I watch it through just to see the clothes, carriages and other scenery. Despite liking Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (in my opinion, a better actor than his dad), I just couldn't get into this story. He was good, but everyone else seemed to overact, which was not uncommon in the early years of talking films.

I also didn't feel any character connection, it seemed to be lacking. The two romantic couples lacked any spark of chemistry, and the whole story of pretending to be a gentleman and righting the wrong done to his father just didn't come off well.

There are better ways to spend an hour and a half.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. served as producer and star of this motion picture, the first by his new company, Criterion. Shot at the Elstree studio near London and based on the popular 1913 English novel set in the Regency days by James Farnol, The Amateur Gentleman was filmed twice before.

Fairbanks plays Barnabas Barty, the son of ex-boxing champion John Barty, now an innkeeper. During a stay at his inn by visitors from London: the Marquess of Camberhurst, Camberhurst's granddaughter Lady Cleone, and her fiancé Louis Chichester, the elder Barty is falsely accused of stealing a watch from Chichester. The innkeeper is taken away to a London prison to await execution.

Barnabas, suspecting Chichester of a frame-up, follows the Camberhurst party to London posing as a wealthy gentleman named John Beverly, in hopes of finding proof of his father's innocence. He gains access to the Prince Regent's court where he raises money at the gambling tables and in a bare-knuckled boxing match while he unravels the mystery and falls in love with the leading lady.

Some fine acting by Fairbanks and Gordon Harker as his accomplice Natty Bell, lavish sets and costumes, music by Richard Addisell and a suspenseful plot make this a three star film. Unfortunately, it is not available on home video or played on television. A restored 35 mm print will be shown at Cinefest in Syracuse New York on March 5, 2005.