White Face

White Face (also known as 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]

White Face
Directed byT. Hayes Hunter
Produced byMichael Balcon
Written byAngus MacPhail (scenario)
Bryan Edgar Wallace (adaptation)
Based onplay Persons Unknown by Edgar Wallace
StarringHugh Williams
Gordon Harker
Renee Gadd
Music byLouis Levy
CinematographyAlex Bryce
Bernard Knowles
Production
company
British Lion Film Corporation
Gainsborough Pictures
Distributed byWoolf & Freedman Film Service (UK)
Release date
May 1932 (London) (UK)
Running time
70 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

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.

Cast

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]

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)


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