White Face

White Face
Directed by T. Hayes Hunter
Produced by Michael Balcon
Written by Angus MacPhail (scenario)
Bryan Edgar Wallace (adaptation)
Based on play Persons Unknown by Edgar Wallace
Starring Hugh Williams
Gordon Harker
Renee Gadd
Music by Louis Levy
Cinematography Alex Bryce
Bernard Knowles
Production
company
Distributed by Woolf & Freedman Film Service (UK)
Release date
 May 1932 (London) (UK)
Running time
 70 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English

White Face (a.k.a. Edgar Wallace's White Face the Fiend) is a 1932 British crime film directed by T. Hayes Hunter and starring Hugh Williams, Gordon Harker and Renee Gadd. The film is based on a play by Edgar Wallace.[1]

Plot

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.

Preservation status

The film is now considered a lost film, but the screenplay still exists.[2] While working on this film, an affair between Hugh Williams and Renee Gadd began.[3]

Cast

Critical reception

The New York Times wrote, "the British studios contribute a well-bred little mystery picture to the Broadway market in White Face, which is at the Broadway Theatre. An Edgar Wallace product, tailor-made according to the formula for these matters, it places a corpse in a slummy London street at midnight, sets the hounds of Scotland Yard baying up several wrong trees, and in good time whips the mask off the mysterious White Face. On Hollywood standards it is a pleasant enough item for the homicide enthusiasts, suffering generally from a faintly anemic quality and specifically from an absence of humor."[4]

References

  1. ↑ "White Face". BFI.
  2. ↑ Sweet p.90
  3. ↑ Sweet p.88-90
  4. ↑ "Movie Review - White Face - An Edgar Wallace Story". New York Times.

Bibliography

  • Sweet, Matthew. Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British Cinema (Faber and Faber, 2005)


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.