Seven Sinners (1936 film)

Seven Sinners
Directed by Albert de Courville
Written by Sidney Gilliat
Frank Launder
Austin Melford (additional dialogue)
L. Du Garde Peach (adaptation)
Based on play The Wrecker by Arnold Ridley and Bernard Merivale
Starring Edmund Lowe
Constance Cummings
Music by Jack Beaver (uncredited)
Cinematography Mutz Greenbaum
Edited by Michael Gordon
Production
company
Distributed by Gaumont British Distributors
Release date
 June 1936 (London)
Running time
 67 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English

Seven Sinners is a 1936 British thriller film directed by Albert de Courville and starring Edmund Lowe, Constance Cummings and Felix Aylmer.[1] The screenplay concerns an American detective and his sidekick, who are called to Britain to take on a gang of international criminals.

The film was made at Lime Grove Studios by Gainsborough Pictures.[2] Its sets were designed by the Hungarian art director Ernö Metzner.

Plot

During Carnival in Nice, somewhat drunk New York City private detective Ed Harwood stumbles into the wrong hotel room and finds the dead body of a man who had helped him earlier that evening. The room was occupied by a man named Wagner. However, by the time Harwood fetches the hotel manager and others, the corpse has disappeared. They all assume he imagined it, including Caryl Fenton, a Worldwide Insurance Company employee sent to take him to Scotland to investigate a robbery.

Unable to convince anyone otherwise, he boards a train with Fenton. However, the train derails. When Harwood comes to, he finds the missing body nearby. On the dead man's sleeve, he finds written an address in Paris; he takes the sleeve with him. He tells Paul Turbé, the assistant prefect of police, his theory that the wreck was caused to try to conceal the murder. Turbé confirms that the it was no accident - the railway signals were tampered with - but he is skeptical of Harwood's hypothesis. Harwood bets him $5000 that he will catch the killer.

In Paris, Harwood and Fenton go to the address; they inform the occupant that Heinrich Wagner was killed in the train wreck, When the man claims he had not heard of the wreck, Harwood realizes he is lying (two newspapers in the waste paper basket reported the accident on the front page). That night, Harwood breaks into the place, with Fenton in tow. They find the suite almost completely empty of furniture. However, Harwood finds an old dinner invitation inside a clock from the "Lord Mayor Elect and the Sheriffs of London" to "Axel Hoyt and party". When Harwood opens a window, someone fires at them, finally convincing Fenton that his story is true. From a photograph of the banquet, they find Hoyt (the man they spoke to) and Wagner seated next to each other. A woman nearby is wearing a fashionable dress, which Fenton traces to an Elizabeth Wentworth.

At a charity event, Harwood manages to strike up a conversation with Wentworth. When he remarks that he saw an acquaintance of hers, Hoyt, in Paris recently, she informs him that Hoyt died three years ago. They then manage to look up the doctor responsible for the death certificate. They learn that he has been unexpected called away to Southampton, by train. They drive off in pursuit, but are too late to prevent yet another railway derailment, this time by a lorry left on the tracks at a crossing. While Harwood is talking to the local chief constable of the county, he is surprised when Turbé shows up. Turbé shows him that the doctor's cuff link looks exactly like Wagner's. Fenton later notices that they match the emblem of the charity Wentworth is associated with, Pilgrims of Peace.

Harwood and Fenton attend a Pilgrims of Peace rally, where they learn that the leaders are going to board a relief ship bound for Bordeaux. Harwood brawls with some of the gang's henchmen before escaping. The pair race to catch a train, where they encounter Turbé. Harwood tells Turbé that when he lights his cigarette, he is to bring the two Scotland Yard agents in. Then Harwood and Fenton confront the Pilgrims of Peace leaders in the dining car, where Harwood accuses Hoyt of engaging in gunrunning, something he also did in Argentina. However, as he is speaking, Harwood glances at Turbé and realises he is the man with his back turned in the banquet photograph. Harwood informs the gang members that Turbé has double-crossed them. He was worried about being exposed, but his associates applied pressure to force him to continue working with them. Instead, he set about killing them all. Turbé disconnects the dining car, leaving it to be destroyed by a following train. The gang try to flee to the back of the car, but are killed. Harwood and Fenton survive by escaping from the front.

Turbé is killed while trying to escape arrest. Afterward, Harwood and Fenton decide to get married.

Cast

Critical reception

Frank Nugent, The New York Times critic, called it "a crisp, humorous and deftly turned murder mystery" and noted "an unmistakable resemblance to the Hitchcock melodrama [The 39 Steps] in the picture's rapid direction, urbanity and cleverness."[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Seven Sinners (1936)". BFI.
  2. ↑ Wood p. 92
  3. ↑ Frank S. Nugent (22 August 1936). "' Seven Sinners,' at the Roxy, Shows the Hitchcock Influence -- 'Crouching Beast' at the Rialto". The New York Times.

Bibliography

  • Low, Rachael. Filmmaking in 1930s Britain. George Allen & Unwin, 1985.
  • Wood, Linda. British Films, 1927-1939. British Film Institute, 1986.
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