HYDE PARK CORNER

UK, 1935, 85 minutes, Black-and-white.
Gordon Harker, Binnie Hale, Gibb McLaughlin?, Eric Portman, Robert Holmes.
Directed by Sinclair Hill.

This is quite a bizarre film. It is not necessary to put it on a must-see list. Rather, it is a British curiosity, beginning life as a play with Gordon Harker in the role of the policeman, the role that he takes up in this film.

For the first 20 minutes or so the action takes place in 1780, quite a period piece, focusing on the Bow Street Runners led by Gordon Harker who come to a mansion at Hyde Park Corner where a young fop, Eric Portman, is prepared to continue gambling even to the loss of his house. A rival, played by Gibb Mc Laughlin, is envious of the house and is prepared to cheat to win it, enlisting the help of a cashiered military man who is posing as a captain, Robert Holmes. Harker insinuates himself into the house after knocking out the guard at the door and, eventually, after sleeping, calls in his squad to arrest everyone. There has been an interlude where a popular singer takes over the action, singing, and joins the card players. When the cheating is revealed, there is a sword fight dual (not persuasive at all).

Then, suddenly we are in the 1930s. The same actors in the central roles played characters who are descended from the characters in the 18th century. Gordon Harker is a policeman, called in to investigate a murder, rather full of himself, catching a young woman (who has the same name as the singer in the 18th century), a shoplifter and prosecuter in the court. There is a descendant of the gambler who continues to gamble – and he is accused of murder. The descendant of the cashiered soldier is now a respectable knight of the realm and a lawyer. And the descendant of the villain who wanted to get the house in Hyde Park Corner? He is now posing as the butler – and, of course, he did it.

It is a mixture of knockabout comedy, a court case, an investigation, a final confrontation with guns – and an improbably happy ending.

A curiosity.