The Vulture | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ralph Ince |
Written by | John Dighton Reginald Purdell Brock Williams |
Produced by | Irving Asher |
Starring | Claude Hulbert Hal Walters Lesley Brook |
Cinematography | Basil Emmott |
Distributed by | Warner Brothers-First National Productions |
Release date |
|
Running time | 67 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The Vulture is a 1937 British quota quickie slapstick comedy film directed by Ralph Ince and starring Claude Hulbert, Hal Walters and Lesley Brook. The film proved very popular with audiences and the following year spawned a sequel The Viper , although this was much less successful.
There is no indication of the film having been shown after its original cinema run. The British Film Institute do not hold a print in the BFI National Archive, although they do have a number of production stills on file. Both The Vulture and The Viper are included on the BFI's "75 Most Wanted" list of missing British feature films. [1]
Hopeless but eager would-be private detective Cedric Gull (Hulbert) has just obtained a diploma from a backstreet 'School of Detection' and is keen to put his new qualification to good use. Fortuitously, he happens to stumble across a crime scene at the office of a diamond merchant, who has just been robbed and assaulted and is being tended by his secretary Sylvia (Brook). The police arrive on the scene, but despite Cedric's proud boasts about his sleuthing qualifications, they decline his kind offers of help.
Striking out on his own, Cedric becomes convinced that the robbery was the work of a notorious gang of East End Chinese jewel thieves led by a mysterious and sinister individual known as The Vulture. He takes on board his ex-con sidekick Stiffy (Walters) and the pair set off in pursuit of the criminals. Their plans come unstuck when their inept bungling lands them both in prison. However the police, aware of their interest in the case, agree to allow them out to act as decoys. Cedric learns that Sylvia has been abducted by the criminals. He decides to disguise himself as Chinese and try to infiltrate their hideout and rescue Sylvia. After a good deal of hapless buffoonery and narrow escapes from sticky situations, he and Stiffy finally succeed in freeing Sylvia, unmasking the thieves and uncovering the identity of the elusive Vulture.
As well as turning out to be a box-office hit, The Vulture received a generally favourable reception from critics. Kine Weekly noted: "The peculiar fecklessness of the star is well adapted to the super-inanity of the story, and the film, with its crazy humour and asinine 'hero' goes all out for the well-known Hulbert effects - and gets them", also praising "excellent production values". The notoriously hard-to-please Monthly Film Bulletin was prepared to concede that it was "an amusing story...adequately directed and the fun well-timed" and that Hulbert "makes the most of his opportunities".
Robert Edward Stevenson was a British-American screenwriter and film director.
John Norman Hulbert was a British actor, director, screenwriter and singer, specializing primarily in comedy productions, and often working alongside his wife (Dame) Cicely Courtneidge.
Claude Noel Hulbert was a mid-20th century English stage, radio and cinema comic actor.
Rome Express is a 1932 British thriller film directed by Walter Forde and starring Esther Ralston and Conrad Veidt. Based on a story by Clifford Grey, with a screenplay by Sidney Gilliat, the film is a tale about a European express train to Rome carrying diverse characters, including thieves, adulterers, blackmail victims, and an American film star. The film won the American National Board of Review award for Best Foreign Film. Rome Express was remade as Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948).
Jack's the Boy is a 1932 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde and starring Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtneidge, Francis Lister and Peter Gawthorne. It became well known for its song "The Flies Crawled Up the Window", sung by Hulbert, which was released as a record and proved a major hit. The film was released in the U.S. as Night and Day.
Welcome, Mr. Washington is a 1944 British drama film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott and starring Barbara Mullen, Donald Stewart and Peggy Cummins. The film was made by British National Films, based on a story by Noel Streatfeild.
Walter Summers (1892–1973) was a British film director and screenwriter.
The Good Old Days is a 1939 British historical comedy film directed by Roy William Neill. Written by Austin Melford and John Dighton based on a story by Ralph Smart, it stars Max Miller, Hal Walters and Kathleen Gibson. The film tells the story of a group of entertainers struggling to obtain permission to perform at a tavern in 1840.
For You Alone is a 1945 British World War II romance melodrama, one of only two films directed by cinematographer Geoffrey Faithfull, starring Lesley Brook, Dinah Sheridan and Jimmy Hanley. The film was made by a smaller studio, Butcher's Films – more known for turning out quickly and cheaply shot B-movies – and had a lack of star names, but appears to have been a relatively sophisticated and well-financed production. On its release, three weeks after V-E Day, the film became a huge popular success, seeming to catch the mood of a nation just beginning to emerge from war.
Lesley Brook was a British stage, film and television actress. Married to an RAF pilot, Terry Spencer, she moved after the war to South Africa for 15 years before returning to the UK. They had three children. Cara, born in 1949 and Raina, born in 1958. They had a third child, a boy, but he died in a tragic accident, drowning in an unfenced swimming pool. She died just short of her 92nd birthday in 2009, her husband dying within 24 hours of her at the age of 90. On stage she appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-on-Avon, including as Olivia in Twelfth Night in 1939.
Sailors Three is a 1940 British war comedy film directed by Walter Forde and starring Tommy Trinder, Claude Hulbert and Carla Lehmann. This was cockney music hall comedian Trinder's debut for Ealing, the studio with which he was to become most closely associated. It concerns three British sailors who accidentally find themselves aboard a German ship during the Second World War.
Henry Paul "Hal" Walters was a British actor. He was best known for his role in The Four Feathers (1939). He was killed by a bomb in an air raid during the London Blitz.
The Viper is a 1938 British slapstick comedy film directed by Roy William Neill and starring Claude Hulbert, Betty Lynne and Hal Walters. The film was a sequel to the previous year's very successful The Vulture, with Hulbert and Walters reprising their roles as hapless private detective Cedric Gull and his sidekick Stiffy respectively. Lesley Brook also features in both films, but in unrelated roles. Directorial duties passed to Neill as Ralph Ince, the director of The Vulture, had been killed in a road accident shortly after the film's release.
Educated Evans is a 1936 British comedy film, directed by William Beaudine and starring Max Miller. The film, set in the world of horse racing, was based on the 1924 novel of the same name by the prolific Edgar Wallace. It is one of five films starring Miller which is not known to be extant, and is classed as "missing, believed lost". A sequel Thank Evans was released in 1938; it too is missing. The story was later adapted into a BBC television series Educated Evans in 1957.
The Girl in Possession is a 1934 British comedy film starring Laura La Plante and Henry Kendall and directed by Monty Banks, who also wrote the screenplay and featured in the film himself.
The Black Panther is a 1977 British crime film directed and produced by Ian Merrick, his first feature, and stars Donald Sumpter, Debbie Farrington and Marjorie Yates. Its subject is the real life ex-military criminal Donald Neilson, known as the "Black Panther".
Dead Men Tell No Tales is a 1938 British thriller film directed by David MacDonald and starring Emlyn Williams, Sara Seegar and Hugh Williams. It is based on the 1935 novel The Norwich Victims by Francis Beeding. The film was made at Welwyn Studios.
Let Me Explain, Dear is a 1932 British comedy film directed by Gene Gerrard and Frank Miller and starring Gerrard, Viola Lyel and Claude Hulbert. It was adapted from the play A Little Bit of Fluff by Walter Ellis. It was made by British International Pictures.
Big Business is a 1934 British comedy film directed by Cyril Gardner and starring Claude Hulbert, Eve Gray and Ernest Sefton. It was made at Teddington Studios as a quota quickie by the British subsidiary of Warner Brothers. It is notably the second film of the same name that James Finlayson starred in.
The Knowledge is a 1979 British comedy-drama television film about a group of men and a woman doing "The Knowledge", the training required to become a London taxi driver. It was directed by Bob Brooks with an ensemble cast including Nigel Hawthorne, Mick Ford, Jonathan Lynn and Maureen Lipman.