La corona contro stevens

As part of TCM's rolling out of films from Teddington, a small British studio, "Crown vs. Stevens," a 1936 film was shown.

These Teddington movies are done on the cheap, with poor production values, no names in the cast, and made very quickly. Nevertheless, the studio managed to pull them off with some good results here and there.

The very handsome Patric Knowles, who would soon come to Hollywood, plays a man taken advantage of by his fiancée - she takes off on him before he's paid for her ring, which she refuses to return.

His nasty cheapskate employer won't give him a raise or an advance, so he's forced to go to the seller to explain that he can't pay. He's promptly threatened with legal action if he doesn't show up with the money.

When he returns, sans money, he finds a woman has just killed the man and burned his books. It turns out to be his boss' wife, and she begs for his silence. He finds himself in a moral dilemma.

This movie held my interest and has a very satisfying denouement. We see so many B movies done in the U. S., why not some from Britain as well? Teddington isn't big on glamor and stars but seems to have tried for decent stories.

A clean little quota quickie which has some affinities to post war film noir. The femme fatale in this one is a bit more dreary than her noir sisters. The greatest affinity however that this film, and most of the other better quota quickies, is that they had straight ahead, no nonsense scripts, and a throw away sense of economics - no one really cared what the final product was as long as it was done for a price- and therefore no interference from producers and executives (who didn't exist at the time). The finished films were simply effective stories told in no nonsense fashion. Compared to today's films with their interminable lists of co-producers, executive producers and just plain producers, all of whom have massive insecurity and ego problems as well as overwhelming inferiority complexes, causing them all to have to put in various proprietary bits of business to show that they played an important part in the production of the film, the good quota quickie, like the film noir, works like a palate refresher.

Despite the somewhat misleading title of Crown VS Stevens (it's not a courtroom drama) the picture gets into the story from the start and marches off in a direct line to the denouement in a very satisfying way. Another similarity with the noir is the absence of star ego. Stories have not been manipulated because some big ego wants all of the good lines to do or have the double do acts of daring do etc. In fact in Crown VS. Stevens, a British Warner production, the lead actor Patric Knowles would be whisked off to Hollywood to appear as Errol Flynn's brother in Charge of the Light Brigade and begin a long career. In Crown Vs. Stevens what you see is what you get.

There are no twists or turns to the story, but there are various forking paths open to moral interpretation. Taken on this level there are layers upon layers of moral ambiguity, not the least of which is the identification with the crimes of Crime and Punishment, except in this film there is absolutely no guilt creeping into the consciousness of the femme fatale, the sociopathic element that was the hallmark of the noir. But that's getting a little too carried away and heaping too much significance on this amusing little film.

If you're looking for directorial distinctiveness (because the film was directed by the great Michael Powell), you'll be hard pressed to find much of it in this movie. Powell simply moves the story along deftly, managing the many dead ends and fresh starts in the plot so that they all seem quite natural. The plot itself is tepid by today's standards (and possibly also by the standards of the time). Certainly the shock value of a woman's role in the death of a moneylender is minimal. Some of the acting is a bit over-the-top, but when the characters appear at their most natural in their day-to-day working-stiff lives, they shine the most. Overall, as satisfying as the experience was, I couldn't give this film more than six stars.

Patric Knowles is engaged to Mabel Poulton, who leaves him and absconds with the as-yet-paid-for ring. This leaves Knowles indebted to unpleasant money lender Morris Harvey, who is not inclined to be forgiving. Knowles shows up at Harvey's shop only to find him murdered and encounters Beatrix Thomson fleeing the scene. He soon discovers that Thomson is his employer's (Frederick Piper) wife, and she tries to involve him in a scheme to kill him.

This is essentially a low budget quota quickie made by Teddington Studios, a British studio bought by Warner Brothers to produce British B films to pair with their A films in Britain. Despite being an obviously low budget outing, there are a few things of interest.

The main point of interest is that it's an early directorial outing for Michael Powell, although truth be told, besides being competently assembled, it doesn't bear much of his stamp. Thomson clearly dominates the film, and it's a welcome shift when she becomes the focus in the second half. It's also worth noting that even though the film bears the Warner Brothers logo, it was never intended to play outside of Britain, so it has more that a few elements that don't comply with the Production Code.

British character actor Bernard Miles pops up as a cop.

A few years later, this would have been a film noir. It's an early work by Michael Powell. And the guy knew something about noir: How about "Peeping Tom"! Patric Knowles is perfect as the central character. He is a bit timid. He's genuinely attractive; so we understand why the ladies like him. He has a gentle quality that makes us care what happens to him.

This movie, like much film noir, involves a mercenary woman. There's a good woman, too.

It's directed smoothly and moves along quickly. I can't think of anything to fault it for. It's not a great movie. But it's an extremely skillful presentation.