Jack le mystérieux

A typically 30s-style charismatic gentleman thief and master of disguise tackles a dangerous criminal gang while posing as a butler at a stately home. Vintage in age rather than in quality, and not as good as the identically-titled British kids' TV programme of three or four decades later.

Well no it is not a movie about lawn bowls and featuring Mick Molloy and other Australian actors, this is the British comedy of years gone by with Tom Walls and his typical farce and comedic stylisings. I have began watching Tom Walls comedies, in a race of filmographies with my brother and this is the third Walls comedy I have seen. This seems to be by far the best of them, and he appears to have honed his style. The beginning is especially memorable with the theft of diamonds and the switching of these around. The movie is very amusing and is well worth the watch, it is not an outstanding movie, and I am not as dedicated to Tom Walls as my brother is, but his movies are usually diverting and not terrible. This film is well worth a watch and is Tom Walls, watch this film to get a real understanding of the Walls filmography.

The film begins with a scene in which a plane is hijacked by a gang of criminals and some precious diamonds are stolen. However it is not the gang that gets away with the loot but rather the master thief and modern day Robin Hood, Jack Drake, who has beaten the gang to it. Meanwhile, the latest craze in London is the memoirs of a thief, who goes by the pseudonym of "Crackerjack." When a string of precious pearls is stolen at a society party, Crackerjack is suspected, owning to a number of idiosyncrasies of the culprit, which are also mentioned in Crackerjack's book. But who is Crackerjack - is he Jack Drake? And will Jack get away with his philanthropic thieving?

This film is good entertainment but nothing special. The sort of story that the film uses involving gangs of criminals, stolen jewels and princesses (or a Baroness in this case) has been used so many times before - even by Tom Walls himself - that it needs something special to make it work. There are a few fairly uninventive twists in the plot - the people you least expect turn out to be criminals and so on. All of it leads to a rather formulaic showdown towards the end of the film. Nevertheless, there are a few good surprises which add interest to what would otherwise be a fairly average film. For me, the most disappointing thing is that we know who Crackerjack is for almost all of the film. I think it would've added a whole extra dimension to the film if the answer had've been denied us until the end - and it would've justified the existence of the "Crackerjack" book, which, as the film stood, was totally peripheral to the plot.

Tom Walls makes a wonderful gentleman criminal; almost as great as James Mason, but in a different, more old-world chivalrous way. His name on the bill was what made me decide to watch this film, and he is definitely its strongest link. The rest of the cast are nothing special and I found Lilli Palmer a tad annoying but an acceptable leading lady. Overall the story is sufficiently engrossing and consistent enough to make this reasonable viewing - but only slightly above average.

Tom Walls was a very famous comedy actor in the thirties usually in very, very silly farces playing very, very silly characters. This is not one of those silly farces he was famous for, it's a routine comedy crime caper and it's not his "usual home" and I can see why the comments at the time were like: He should stick to what he's good at.

The problem with this is twofold: it's not that funny and the character he plays, an upper-class gentleman thief without any of the charm of say David Niven or Warren William would have had is not likeable. There were lots of likeable gentleman thieves in 1930s pictures but, without denigrating Mr Walls talents, they were played by proper actors, not comedians. He does his best to warm "Drake" to us - he steals from the rich, gives to the poor, helps sick children, builds hospitals, rights wrongs and is a general all round good guy but Tom Walls, as good a comedy character actor as he was, picked the wrong character to make a whole film out of.

Can you imagine TROUBLE IN PARADISE but with Miriam Hopkins and Kay Francis fighting over W C Fields instead of Herbert Marshall? I think the answer's probably no but I suspect that Tom Wall would probably have thought - yes - and I can do that as well.

The third problem I had with this - was the fact that sweet and lovely Lilli Palmer is 24 and she is meant to be head over heels in love with Tom Walls - not the most attractive man in the world when he was younger but now he's in his late fifties. He's old enough to be her father and looks like her grandfather - it just feels wrong! This was directed by Albert de Courville who was in his late fifties as well. He also made the (much better and much funnier) THERE GOES THE BRIDE several years earlier. In that, 24 year old Jessie Matthews (the sexiest and most beautiful woman in English cinema at the time) was herself head over heels with a guy also in his late fifties. I wonder did Mr de Courville have some issues he was trying to get out through his work!

I've always liked Tom Walls' farces – this is a more straightforward comedy, full of frothy sometimes witty dialogue and period furnishings with music veering from staid British dance band to hot American and a corny yet cogent script. Mind you, it also had an innocent bystander shot by hoodlums at point blank defending "a string of duds" from being stolen.

Mysterious and confident cracksman robs to order for almost purely altruistic reasons, but takes great exception when he's embroiled with and considered by the police to be the head hoodlum of a rather nasty gang of thieves so decides decidedly to clear his alias. It's inventive and predictable at the same time, interesting and so-so – basically I enjoyed it! It was the first time of viewing, I really wouldn't mind taking another crack at it and viewing it again sometime. Tom Walls is urbane and monocled, Lilli Palmer is elegant and shrewd, Noel Madison is snarly and impetuous – and everything else runs true to form too. There seems to be even more of an age-gulf between Lilli and the rest of the cast which was ignored of course so we have to accept it too and put any qualms we may have down to our collective post-rock and roll cynicism. The other star of the picture is Art Deco – for example the "hotel" and its interiors and furniture where a lot of the story is based is quite breathtaking at times in its poignant gleaming beauty. Not so long ago this fashion was sneered at, now that it's becoming more obvious we're living in a completely styleless age the focus on the past only gets sharper.

And yes, that's clearly a sound mike seen dangling in the ornate mirror in Lilli Palmer's apartment at 46 minutes – even that's interesting to view! Enjoyable stuff, but probably only to those of us who appreciate British pre-War comedies.