Acting
A 1930s British summer Bank Holiday starts at midday on Saturday with a rush for the trains to the seaside. Doreen and Milly are off to a beauty contest, Geoffrey and Catherine are having an illicit weekend in the Grand Hotel and May and the kids are set for a more straightforward holiday of sea, sand, and pub. Meanwhile, the manager and performers on the pier are praying for rain.
That old theatrical war-horse Bella Donna (previously filmed in America by Alla Nazimova) was resurrected by Britain's Twickenham Studios in 1934. Conrad Veidt stars as sinister Egyptian Mahmoud Baroundi, who even before the film gets under way has left a long trail of ruined women behind him. His latest victim is American girl Mona Chepstow (Mary Ellis), whom Baroundi treats like dirt and makes her like it. The plot centers around a murder by poison, as evidenced by the film's deliberately exotic title. Critics in 1934 praised newcomer Mary Ellis for underplaying her role, but many film fans preferred Nazimova's arm-waving histrionics in the earlier version.
Three victims plot to murder a retired informer.
Three tales of privileged youth entangled in murder: French students kill for money, an Italian student smuggles cigarettes, and an English poet exploits a grim discovery.
'Affianced Foreign Office agent searches for mystery woman he loves.' (British Film Catalogue)
A group of people in an old dark house are terrorized by a mysterious hooded figure dressed in black who proceeds to kill them off one by one.
Domineering actor-manager Max Till takes the impoverished Maika Tamara under his wing, turning her into an overnight sensation. But as her fame threatens to eclipse his own, he jealously strives to control every aspect of her life - including her romance with theatre electrician Paul Lebrun.
A young man impersonates a doctor.
A crime film directed by Herbert Wynne
A young British woman, tricked into believing she was used during a whirlwind romance, marries a gentle widowed Italian opera star, whose songs she and her first love shared.
A well-known film director has a gangster double, whom he ends up killing. Taking the gangsters place, he then causes an actress to be framed.
Sir Douglas Rolls is a highly respected defence lawyer of many years experience. Now in rapidly failing health, he is advised to retreat from the courtroom and pursue more pleasurable activities. But it is just at this point in his life that his great lost love a woman his own strong sense of duty led him to give up twenty years ago, and whom he still loves deeply walks into his chambers to ask that he defend her adulterous husband, now to stand trial for murder. Reluctantly agreeing to take on the case, Sir Douglas soon finds there is more to the story than meets the eye.
A criminal hides the body of a dead financier in an effort to manipulate shares.
A doctor becomes a blackmailer and a jewel thief in order to raise funds for a hospital in East London but is uncovered by an ambitious reporter.
Musical comedy. An opera singer falls for a stowaway on the way to Monte Carlo
A British comedy film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott
A man beset by creditors invents a fictitious partner
Mother Riley plays a nurse who was forced to volunteer for the Auxiliary Territorial Service. Mayhem ensues until she is able to prevent German spies from acquiring important documents.
Kathleen O'Moore returns to her home in rural Ireland and becomes torn between the affections of Michael Rooney, a poor but honest man, and the wealthy squire with the power to make her dreams come true.
When financier Reginald Bingham leaves on a business trip to Paris, normally devoted wife Eleanor leaves for a cottage with a secret boy friend. The couple are followed by friends of her husband, who attempt to hinder the affair. However, Reginald is also tempted by a fling with an old friend in Paris.
