Anybody here ever hear of Matheson Lang? Well, he was the Laurence Olivier/Lon Chaney, Sr. of his day. He was also one of the founders and first directors of The Old Vic in Britain. I bring this to the attention, because it's interesting that this great and famous actor of the beginning of the twentieth century is basically wholly forgotten today. I also bring it to the attention here because last night I watched one of his 32 films, "The Great Defender" (1934), a fine old-fashioned mystery/drama/romance made in Britain by British International Pictures (BIP), starring Matheson, Margaret Bannerman, Arthur Margetson, Richard Bird, Sam Livesey, Robert Horton, J. Fisher White, and others.
Matheson plays Sir Douglas Rolls, a great defense lawyer who is diagnosed as dying of several ailments and told to cut out his career and take it easy, travel, try to preserve himself a tad longer. Instead, he has his former love (played by Margaret Bannerman) come to him asking him to defend her husband against a murder charge. Her husband, an artist, we have watched have an affair with the murdered woman, an artist's model who has been modeling for a fine nude portrait. She also - something not known by all the different men - has been three-timing the artist, her fiancé, and another man. The artist's wife - Bannerman - still loved by Sir Douglas Rolls, gets his attention, and he agrees to defend her husband anyway - and she wishes him to defend her husband whether or not he has been faithful to her... The program then shifts to a Perry Mason like courtroom drama.
Well done, if a tad tedious by modern standards because it is rather too talky, but really interesting and fun to watch. The film harps back to a twenties stage tradition as much as anything. Still, with Matheson - slightly ripe, rather in the Richard Dix talkie tradition - the show plays remarkably well. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to watch a Matheson vehicle.
Matheson made the original "Mr. Wu" in 1919, several years before Lon Chaney, Sr. re-essayed the role. Matheson played Chinese characters several other times, too, for that matter, much like Chaney. His rather famous (in Britain) film, "Little Friend" (1934), made the same year as this one, has 15 year old Nova Pilbeam (in her first film) witnessing a nasty divorce of her parents, Matheson and Bannerman (the latter the same actress who plays his former love in this film). Matheson essayed many, many historical roles, too, from Drake the English privateer to Guy Fawkes, Dick Turpin, Henry, King of Navarre, Henry V of England, and Cardinal Medici. He began in movies in 1916 playing Shylock in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" and played his last role in 1936. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1879, he died in Barbadoes in 1948.
This is truly worth finding and watching!
