User Reviews

Producer: Michael Balcon. A Gaumont-British production. Not copyrighted in the United States, but released by Gaumont British: 24 May 1934. New York opening at the 55th Street Playhouse: 23 May 1934. U.K. release: 16 December 1933. 67 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Crooked financier attempts to silence a critic on board the steamer from Dover to Calais.

COMMENT: Handicapped both by rather obvious make-up (which shows up because of director Milton Rosmer's annoying penchant for constant close-ups) and the necessity to affect a studied Dutch accent, Matheson can do little with the central role. He tries, but his efforts are too stagey to engage audience interest. The part really needs a charismatic player like Charles Laughton. True, the hero played by the mercilessly dull Anthony Bushell is even less successful.

A further annoyance is provided by double-talking Max Miller whose comedy routines, short as they are, play with all the bounce of a punctured tennis ball. Edmund Gwenn tries to cheer things up, but overdoes the act. Constance Cummings is fair enough, but alas, she is rather unflatteringly photographed and costumed.

Oddly, this is a movie in which the very minor players — Stoker, Patch, Warren, Plumb — come off best. And fortunately, this floating Grand Hotel does have its general mise-en-scene and nostalgia values to recommend it as well.

A pity the scenario editor didn't take the shears to some of that talk, and that director Rosmer made no attempt to force the pace. Although always competent and occasionally even striking, Rosmer's direction is leisurely and actor-indulgent to a fault.

This is one of those thought provoking dramas that might take a few viewings to completely understand. Like many movies on travel, it's got a huge ensemble, but there's only one major plot and no smaller ones to get in the way. The ensemble is mostly little snippets of the interactions of other passengers intermingling with the three important characters (Matheson Lang, Constance Cummings and Anthony Bushell) here and there and react to issues occurring on the voyage from England to the mainland. It's fascinating, if slow in spots, and for those only familiar with British films through Hitchcock, this is an interesting example of their place in cinema during the dawn of the golden age.

Fans of classic movies will instantly recognize Nigel Bruce and Edmund Gwenn, with Bruce playing an older man divorcing his much younger wife (also on board) and hoping to himself obviously that she falls overboard. Lang, like Sydney Greenstreet in the 1940's and Orson Welles in the 1950's, is the gregarious fat man with an agenda, seeming a bit too interested in his secretary (Cummings) and hateful of her beau (Bushell). The film get a little talky here and there and some of the British cultural references might confuse American audiences, not to mention modern British audiences through changing times. But as I've noticed for years, British cinema seemed to advance technically faster than American movies did, and this film pretty much proves it.

It may be an "All Star Extravaganza" but Matheson Lang is the whole show - he plays larger than life financier Jacob Van Eeden and a real attempt was made to present him as a multi layered personality. A hard man who has his immediate future mapped out - he has some stocks and is escaping to Paris to do a deal before he is found out - but he is found out, overheard mapping out his plans to his adoring secretary Marion. The eavesdropper is Peter (Anthony Bushell, suitably wooden) Marion's fiance and a reporter. His first mistake is bursting into the apartment claiming "I'll tell, I'll tell"!! Van Eeden then sends some pointless messages to the telegrapher, guaranteed to keep him busy at his radio for the rest of the trip. There is another side to Van Eeden, one that makes him beloved, even by the lowliest man in the street - always willing to extend a helping hand "you come and see me and I'll give you a hand" he tells a man with a hard luck story and he knows everyone by name!! Edmund Gwenn as a husband taking his family over for a weekend in Paris, echoes everyone in his worshipful approach to Van Eeden. Van Eeden also has plans for Marion and they don't include Peter. He and Peter have an altercation on the fog bound deck and Jacob wrestles the reporter overboard but from then on he has an epiphany where the good in his character slowly wrestles out the bad. He forces the tired sailors to keep on searching and when the boy is found gives up his own life saving medicine to save his life.

Constance Cummings is great (as usual) giving a nuanced and professional portrayal. Two others Nigel Bruce and Dorothy Dickson who, in the 1920s, was Britain's answer to Marilyn Miller, play a bickering husband and wife who at the voyage end find they are better off together than apart.