The Four Just Men | |
---|---|
![]() Original Australian trade ad | |
Directed by | Walter Forde |
Written by | |
Based on | The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace |
Produced by | Michael Balcon |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Ronald Neame |
Edited by |
|
Music by | Ernest Irving |
Production company | |
Distributed by |
|
Release date | 7 June 1939 |
Running time | 85 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The Four Just Men, also known as The Secret Four, is a 1939 British thriller film directed by Walter Forde and starring Hugh Sinclair, Griffith Jones, Edward Chapman and Frank Lawton. [1] It is based on the 1905 novel The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace. There was a previous silent film version in 1921. [2] This version was produced by Ealing Studios, [3] with sets designed by Wilfred Shingleton.
The Four Just Men was re-released in 1944 with an updated ending featuring newsreel of Winston Churchill and the Allied war effort as a fulfilment of the ideals of the Four. The adviser on the House of Commons of the United Kingdom scenes was Aneurin Bevan. [4]
The Four Men are British World War I veterans who unite to work in secret against enemies of the country. They aren't above a spot of murder or sabotage to achieve their ends, but they consider themselves true patriots.
The New York Times reviewer wrote, "Four Just Men, by Edgar Wallace, whatever it might have been, was probably not a work of literature, and therefore, on that charitable assumption, it is gently, rather than harshly, that one must deal with the British-made screen version, now on view at the Globe Theatre. Like all pictures seeping over from England nowadays, it is more than a little infected with the virus propagandistus, but, over and above that common-carrier failing, it is a model of sheer incredibility crossed with what (carrying out the charity idea) we might designate as espionage melodrama". [5] According to a writer for the Radio Times decades later "it defiantly suggests that Britain could never fall under the sway of a dictator. But in all other respects it's a rollicking boys' own adventure, with some of the most fiendishly comic-book murders you will ever see... hugely entertaining sub-Hitchcockian antics". [6]
Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British crime black comedy film. It features Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson and Alec Guinness; Guinness plays eight characters. The plot is loosely based on the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (1907) by Roy Horniman. It concerns Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini, the son of a woman disowned by her aristocratic family for marrying out of her social class. After her death, Louis decides to take revenge on the family and take the dukedom by murdering the eight people ahead of him in the line of succession to the title.
Gordon Cameron Jackson, was a Scottish actor best remembered for his roles as the butler Angus Hudson in Upstairs, Downstairs and as George Cowley, the head of CI5, in The Professionals. He also portrayed Capt Jimmy Cairns in Tunes of Glory, and Flt. Lt. Andrew MacDonald, "Intelligence", in The Great Escape.
Michael Anthony Robbins was an English actor and comedian best known for his role as Arthur Rudge in the TV sitcom and film versions of On the Buses (1969–73).
Edward Chapman was an English actor who starred in many films and television programmes, but is chiefly remembered as "Mr. William Grimsdale", the officious superior and comic foil to Norman Wisdom's character of Pitkin in many of his films from the late 1950s and 1960s.
The Ringer is a 1952 British mystery film directed by Guy Hamilton and starring Herbert Lom, Donald Wolfit, Mai Zetterling, Greta Gynt, William Hartnell, and Denholm Elliott. It was Hamilton's directorial debut and the third English-language sound version of Edgar Wallace's 1929 play. It was shot at Shepperton Studios near London. The film's sets were designed by the art director William Hutchinson.
On Such a Night is a 1955 British short semi-documentary film directed by Anthony Asquith which offers a snap-shot of the Glyndebourne opera house in the 1950s, including extracts from Le nozze di Figaro, and a fictional first visit to the opera house by an American. The film was "very discreetly aimed at potential American audiences fascinated by British eccentricities".
Jew Süss is a 1934 British historical romantic drama film based on Lion Feuchtwanger's 1925 novel Jud Süß, about Joseph Süß Oppenheimer. Directed by Lothar Mendes, the film stars German actor Conrad Veidt in the role of Oppenheimer. The screenplay was written by Dorothy Farnum and Arthur Rawlinson.
Hide and Seek is a 1964 British thriller film directed by Cy Endfield.
Royal Cavalcade, also known as Regal Cavalcade, is a 1935 British, black-and-white, drama film directed by six separate directors: Thomas Bentley, Herbert Brenon, Norman Lee, Walter Summers, W. P. Kellino and Marcel Varnel. The film features Marie Lohr, Hermione Baddeley, Owen Nares, Robert Hale, Austin Trevor, James Carew, Edward Chapman and Ronald Shiner as the Soldier in Trenches. The film was presented by Associated British Pictures Corporation.
The Ringer is a 1931 British crime film directed by Walter Forde and starring Patric Curwen, Esmond Knight, John Longden and Carol Goodner. Scotland Yard detectives hunt for a dangerous criminal who has recently returned to England. The film was based on the 1925 Edgar Wallace story The Gaunt Stranger, which is the basis for his play The Ringer. Forde remade the same story in 1938 as The Gaunt Stranger. There was also a silent film of The Ringer in 1928, and a 1952 version starring Donald Wolfit.
Harold Huth was a British actor, film director and producer.
The Ware Case is a 1938 British drama film directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Clive Brook, Jane Baxter and Barry K. Barnes. It is an adaptation of the play The Ware Case (1915) by George Pleydell Bancroft, which had previously been made into two silent films, in 1917 and 1928. It had been a celebrated stage vehicle for Sir Gerald Du Maurier. The film was made at Ealing Studios with stately home exteriors shot in the grounds of Pinewood. Oscar Friedrich Werndorff worked as set designer.
Three Men in a Boat is a 1933 British comedy film directed by Graham Cutts and starring William Austin, Edmund Breon, Billy Milton and Davy Burnaby. It is based on the 1889 novel Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome which depicts three men and a dog's adventure during a boat trip along the River Thames.
Friday the Thirteenth is a 1933 British drama film directed by Victor Saville and starring Jessie Matthews, Sonnie Hale and Muriel Aked.
The Crimson Circle is a 1936 British crime film directed by Reginald Denham and starring Hugh Wakefield, Alfred Drayton, and Niall MacGinnis. It is based on the 1922 novel The Crimson Circle by Edgar Wallace. It was made by the independent producer Richard Wainwright at Shepperton and Welwyn Studios.
Judgment Deferred is a 1952 British drama film directed by John Baxter and starring Joan Collins, Hugh Sinclair, Helen Shingler and Abraham Sofaer. The film is a remake of the director's earlier film, Doss House (1933).
Ships with Wings is a 1941 British war film directed by Sergei Nolbandov and starring John Clements, Leslie Banks and Jane Baxter. The film is set during the Battle of Greece (1940-1941). It depicts military aviation.
Kill Her Gently is a 1957 British thriller film directed by Charles Saunders and starring Griffith Jones, Maureen Connell and Marc Lawrence.
Strangers on Honeymoon is a 1936 British comedy film directed by Albert de Courville and starring Constance Cummings, Hugh Sinclair and Noah Beery, based on the 1926 novel The Northing Tramp by Edgar Wallace. Much of the film takes place in Canada. It was made by Gainsborough Pictures at the Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush. The film's sets were designed by the art director Ernö Metzner. Wallace's son also contributed to the film's screenplay, along with 5 other writers.
Frederick David Griffiths was an English film and television actor. A former London cabbie and wartime fire fighter discovered by director Humphrey Jennings, and cast in his documentary film Fires Were Started in 1943; and over the next four decades played supporting roles and bit parts in 150 films, including various Ealing, Boulting Brothers and Carry On comedies, before eventually retiring in 1984.