A Honeymoon Adventure

I just watched this on the new DVD release ..."Ealing Rarities Collection - Vol: 9".

It's another little gem in this excellent series. Each 2 disc set includes four movies...the others in this set being : "Meet Mr Lucifer", "Cheer Boys,Cheer" and "Whom the Gods Love".

It's a really nice, crisp print, much of it shot on location. A real look back into 1931.

To say that this was made only two years after the first talking picture, this movie has a really sharp quality in both picture and sound.

The two leads are appealing, especially Benita Hume. A stagey plot ?...maybe?...but it's a lovely and entertaining glimpse back into a very different world....sadly, gone forever !

Peter Hannen has invented a groundbreaking whatsit. He takes the plans he is working on with him on his honeymoon with Benita Hume at her castle in Scotland. But bad guys in the person of Harold Huth and Robert English have gotten wind of it and want it. They lure Hannen away, make him a prisoner, and then Huth goes up to Scotland, pretending to be an old friend of Hannen's, and means to search the place for the plans. Will Miss Hume outwit him?

There is a bit of weakness in the plotting here: why not tell her "We have your husband! The plans or his life!" But there is an old family retainer and a piper on the premises, so I guess that's enough. Director Maurice Elvey spends most of the time showing us one of his favored actresses of the period, and that's pleasant enough, as she twists and turns and runs, only to find the annoying Huth right on her trail.

It was a very good print, which allowed me to appreciate the sharp, confident sound design. Scenes that are set outdoors or in crowded locations have a loud ambient background noise that begins on the cut. This lets the audience know they are in the world, and in the real world at that, as church bells, street traffic, and train engines present themselves to the ear as well as the eye; Huth and Miss Hume skulk silently throughout the night in the castle. Marcus Cooper is credited, and the IMDb credits him with being the director of one short subject and the sound recordist on five features for Basil Dean's ARP in the early 1930s. He then disappears until a final credit in 1961. Assuming it's the same Marcus Cooper, I suspect he disappeared into a supervisory position in between.

1931 wasn't exactly the year for fast paced popular entertainment from Britain or any other place and the smell of the greasepaint emanates from the script of this one but it still has a charge, particularly in heroine Benita Humes's flight from the heavy, who you can tell is up to no good. He wears a suit, has a mustache and smirks a lot. Fast cars on mountain roads, trains full of singing sailors and London open top buses.

Director Elvey was doing some of his best work then and while this one can't compare with SALLY IN HER ALLEY or THE LODGER, it isn't disgraced in their company either.

Hints of The THIN MAN.

It's an early film from Basil Dean, one of the first for his ARP company which eventually became Ealing, and also one of the young John "Paddy" Carstairs first credited efforts. Apart from the young and unrecognisable Jack Lambert most of the actors involved stayed firmly in the background in their future careers, although Mary Astor lookalike Benita Hume was in a few good potboilers later in Hollywood. The leading man in here Peter Hannen died a short while after making this and his second film, after a two month illness.

Simple plot: government scientist type man with some Plans gets married and goes on honeymoon, baddies try to get The Plans from him through subterfuge and kidnapping, and later from his wife. What a rotten honeymoon! An interesting and irritating cat and mouse chase forms the main part of the film – interesting because of slick if primitive camera-work, some of it on location, and a nippy script. And irritating because I felt I wanted to sock the ungentlemanly dastard Joseph Calleia lookalike Harold Huth on the jaw for his tenacious temerity in stalking the lady so closely. Like Hitchcock's Blackmail it has partially synchronised sound, meaning there's a few sections of mysterious silences or odd random noises, people talking in silent asides etc. The briefly heard footsteps in the night of the title now sound more like innocuous soundtrack clicks. A fight scene at the climax which is again portrayed with nice camera-work is unfortunately mirth-inducing in its enactment, while the end is farcical borderline embarrassing but mercifully swift so stay with it to find out who gets The Plans! Overall, at 65 minutes long a nice little olde film in good condition showing much promise to come and with many nice touches I enjoyed and many of which I enjoyed for all the right reasons.