They Came by Night

This film was made by Edward Black at Islington Studios for 20th Century Fox.Fox had a substantial interest in Gaumont British and when the Gaumont studios had a financial crisis in the late 1930s Fox used their studios to make films which would qualify for their Quota.Clearly the studios must have been very small as many of the sets looked very cramped and generally poverty stricken.The film itself is very much like this being little more than a hand me down of lots of clichés.There is very little in this film that is original.It is difficult to understand why Will Fyffe would have been considered worthy of being considered the leading part.Whilst he might have appealed to Scottish audiences it is doubtful that this would have gone anywhere south of the border.So not really up to a great deal.

Will Fyffe is a jeweler with a pretty niece, played by Phyllis Calvert. When a precious ruby is stolen, his brother commits suicide.Mr. Fyffe becomes mixed up with the thieves and drawn into their schemes.

It's a very good programmer for Fox's British studio. Mr. Fyffe is excellent in the role, but director Harry Lachman directs it for speed. Nonetheless, Mr. Fyffe gets to show canny good humor in the role. Miss Calvert was still in the beginning of her career, playing the pleasant ingenue -- although her first screen role had been a dozen years earlier, it would not be until the following year's THE REMARKABLE MR. KIPPS that she would have her breakout role. Mr. Lachman returned to the U.S., where he would work for a couple of years in Fox' B division, then retire Mr. Fyffe would return to smaller roles until his death in 1947.

This is actually an ingenious film on a small scale in humble format and concealed under category B, while the intrigue is impressing for its cleverness. A jeweller gets involved in a major theft at a jeweller's and uses his knowledge and skill to frame the perpetrators at considerable risk for his own safety and life, while his daughter Phyllis Calvert adds the charm of beauty to the film. The amazing final sequences actually rival films like "Rififi" and other major thrillers of robbery, and Will Fyffe is thoroughly enjoyable as the innovative jeweller coping with the crisis of his brother's suicide to make things go right.