CANDLES AT NINE
UK, 1944, 75 minutes, Black and white.
Jessie Matthews, Elliot Makeham, Beatrix Lehmann, John Salew, Joss Ambler, Vera Bogetti, Andre van Gyseghem, Winifred Shotter, Reginald Purdell, Hugh Dempster, Patricia Hayes.
Directed by John Harlow.
This is a British curiosity item, a supporting feature from England in World War II. Whether it will satisfy curiosity is another matter…
The film is basically a star vehicle for Jessie Matthews, so celebrated in British films of the 1930s, the romantic lead, with touches of comedy, and a song and dance star. She enters the film rather later but does have a musical number to introduce her.
The basis of the film is one of those where there’s a will, there are relatives… An eccentric old man gathers his family around him. He is cantankerous, is later revealed to have been a murderer of his brother. But he is wealthy – and dies. There is a gathering of the relatives plus his housekeeper and butler who are expecting legacies.
The special news is that he has left all his money to a young dancer, the Jessie Matthews character. She is surprised, has no great desire for the money, has a life of her own, and ambitions for singing and dancing. However, she is persuaded by the relatives to join them at the house – which is an opportunity for the expected areas to display their characters, their limitations, some sinister touches. The unexpected heiress is all charm – that she does have a comedy scene where she is persuaded to drink too much, with expected consequences.
However, the sinister touches are more with the housekeeper, Beatrix Lehmann, a sinister schemer on screen if ever there was one, aided and abetted by the butler.
On the other hand, there are two brothers, who seem to complement each other, a kind of Tweedledum and Tweedledee who may have been funny at the time but are not so funny later.
Evil schemes afoot, plans going wrong, villains unmasked and all’s well that ends well.
The director, John Harlow, began work on silent films in 1928 and continued making small-budget features until the mid-1950s.
