Top Posts Tagged with #robert rendel

#death at broadcasting house

#1934

#british cinema

#crime film

#reginald denham

#val gielgud

#eric maschwitz

#basil mason

#ian hunter

#austin trevor

#lilian oldland

#henry kendall

#peter haddon

#betty ann davies

#jack hawkins

#donald wolfit

#robert rendel

#gordon mcleod

#elisabeth welch

#hannen swaffer

#highly entertaining (if creeky and over egged) inter war crime melodrama‚ but this is also a fascinating record of the earliest days

#of the bbc (a little over a decade old at this point‚ and radio broadcasts of the kind featured here had been regularly transmitted for

#just 2 years!). one of the most startling revelations? early radio variety shows apparently included dance acts. on the radio. i...

#novelty aside this is still a solid little potboiler. Denham really embraces the visual possibilities of his medium (the same can't always

#be said for early brit cinema‚ which i always tend to think of as being a bit behind America‚ and certainly behind the europeans).

#performances are very of their time but still quite charming‚ and even the comic relief fop character is really quite likeable

#fun to spot a Very Baby jack Hawkins as one of the suspects and Donald Wolfit in his screen debut as the detested victim killed off by a

#colleague (im sure there were many costars later in his career who envied that possibility‚ Wolfit being infamously difficult and demanding

#in later life). a lot of old hokum really‚ but very charming and silly with it.

#robert rendel