Prison Without Bars | |
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Directed by | Brian Desmond Hurst |
Written by | Arthur Wimperis Margaret Kennedy (dialogue) |
Based on | play by Egon Eis Otto Eis Gina Kaus Hans Wilhelm |
Produced by | Alexander Korda |
Starring | Corinne Luchaire Edna Best Barry K. Barnes |
Cinematography | Georges Périnal Bernard Browne |
Edited by | William Hornbeck Charles Crichton |
Music by | John Greenwood |
Production company | |
Distributed by | United Artists Corporation (UK) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 72 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Prison Without Bars is a 1938 British black-and-white crime film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Corinne Luchaire, Edna Best and Barry K. Barnes. [1] It is set in a girl's reform school, and was based on a play by Gina Kaus, previously filmed in France as Prison sans Barreaux (1938). [2] Corinne Luchaire starred in both versions. [3]
A young progressive thinking woman becomes superintendent at a French girl's reformatory dominated by the harsh previous head. A young girl is blackmailed by her acquaintance over her love for the superintendent's fiancé, but is released to join him in the end, when all is revealed. [4]
In The New York Times , Frank S. Nugent dismissed the film as "another prison picture, and while we would not want to pass too harsh a sentence upon it, neither can we fairly pretend that it is innocent": [5] whereas, in December 1938, The Daily Telegraph selected it as one of their ten best films of the year. [6]
Mlle. Modiste is an operetta in two acts composed by Victor Herbert with a libretto by Henry Blossom. It concerns hat shop girl Fifi, who longs to be an opera singer, but who is such a good hat seller that her employer, Mme. Cecil, discourages her in her ambitions and exploits her commercial talents. Also, Fifi loves Etienne de Bouvray, who returns her love, but his uncle, Count Henri, opposes their union. The operetta features the song "Kiss Me Again".
Theirs Is the Glory, is a 1946 British war film about the British 1st Airborne Division's involvement in the Battle of Arnhem during Operation Market Garden in the Second World War. It was the first film to be made about this battle, and the biggest grossing UK war film for nearly a decade. The later film A Bridge Too Far depicts the operation as a whole and includes the British, Polish and American Airborne forces, while Theirs Is the Glory focuses solely on the British forces, and their fight at Oosterbeek and Arnhem.
Les Misérables is a 1982 French drama film directed by Robert Hossein. It is one of the numerous screen adaptations of the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. It was entered into the 13th Moscow International Film Festival where it won a Special Prize.
De Sade is a 1969 American-German drama film directed by Cy Endfield and starring Keir Dullea, Senta Berger and Lilli Palmer. It is based on the life of Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, named Louis Alphonse Donatien in the film.
Edna Cecil Cunningham was an American film and stage actress, singer, and comedienne.
Corinne Luchaire was a French film actress who was a star of French cinema on the eve of World War II. Her association with the German occupation led her to be sentenced to "national indignity" after the war, and after writing an autobiography, she died from tuberculosis at age 28.
Gina Kaus was an Austrian-American novelist and screenwriter.
Brian Desmond Hurst was an Irish film director. With over thirty films in his filmography, Hurst was hailed as Northern Ireland's best film director by BBC film critic Mike Catto. He is perhaps best known for the 1951 A Christmas Carol adaptation Scrooge.
Glamorous Night is a musical with a book and music by Ivor Novello and lyrics by Christopher Hassall, Novello's collaborator in six of the eight Novello musicals staged between 1935 and 1951. Glamorous Night was the first of several hit Novello musicals in the 1930s given expensive, spectacular productions.
Barry K. Barnes was an English film and stage actor. The son of Horatio Nelson Barnes and Anne Mackintosh Barnes, he was born and died in London. He appeared in sixteen films between 1936 and 1947. He played Sir Percy Blakeney in the 1937 film The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel. His film career was cut short in 1947 due to an undiagnosable illness contracted during the war. He was married to actress Diana Churchill, and worked with his wife on stage during the 1940s and 1950s, taking West End revivals of The Admirable Crichton and On Approval on profitable tours.
Annie Ducaux was a French actress, who appeared in 40 film and television productions between 1932 and 1980. Ducaux was a shareholder in the state theater Comédie-Française from 1948, and played in numerous stage productions there. She is possibly best-remembered for her roles in such films as Abel Gance's Beethoven's Great Love (1937), Conflict and Les grandes familles.
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Trottie True is a 1949 British musical comedy film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Jean Kent, James Donald and Hugh Sinclair. It was known as The Gay Lady in the US, and is an infrequent British Technicolor film of the period. According to BFI Screenonline, "British 1940s Technicolor films offer an abundance of visual pleasures, especially when lovingly restored by the National Film Archive. Trottie True is not among the best known, but comes beautifully packaged, gift wrapped with all the trimmings." The film is based on a novel by Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon, published in 1946. The New York Times called it "a typical Gay nineties success story" that "amuses but never convulses the reader."
Alibi is a 1942 British mystery film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Margaret Lockwood, James Mason and Hugh Sinclair. It was based on the novel L'Alibi by Marcel Achard.
Margaret Yarde was a British actress. Initially training to be an opera singer, she made her London stage debut in 1907. She often played domestics, landladies and mothers.
Otto Eis (1903–1952) was an Austrian-born writer who worked on a number of screenplays. He was born Otto Eisler to a Jewish family in Budapest which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He later moved to Germany, where he was employed in the German film industry. Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, he moved to Austria, but had to flee again to France following the Anchluss. Eis later moved to the United States, but struggled to secure work in Hollywood although he wrote scripts for a handful of B pictures. Eis was the brother of Egon Eis with whom he co-wrote the screenplay for The Squeaker (1931).
Josette is a 1938 American comedy film directed by Allan Dwan and starring Don Ameche, Simone Simon and Robert Young. Two brothers fall in love with the same nightclub singer.
Nane Germon (1909–2001) was a French television and film actress.
Prison sans barreaux is a 1938 French film directed by Léonide Moguy. It was set in a reformatory for young girls.