Hyde Park Corner (film)

Hyde Park Corner is a 1935 British comedy crime film directed by Sinclair Hill and starring Gordon Harker, Binnie Hale and Eric Portman. Harker portrays a policeman investigating a crime in 1930s London, which proves to have its origins in the 1780s.^[1] The film takes its name from Hyde Park Corner in Central London where the events of the film occur. It was based on a play by Walter C. Hackett. The film was made at Welwyn Studios.

Synopsis

In the 1780s, after an evening of illegal gambling two of the participants fight a duel in which the wronged party is killed by the villain who has just cheated to win the newly built house at Hyde Park Corner from him. Officer Cheatle of the Bow Street Runners is able to arrest those present for gambling, but is unable to prove that a murder has occurred.

A hundred and fifty years later Constable Cheatle, his great grandson, is intrigued by reports of another murder at the same house in Hyde Park Corner. Cheatle sees this as a way of fulfilling his ambition to join the plainclothes detective branch. His attempts to solve the case are initially interrupted by Sophie, a petty criminal who he arrests while she is shoplifting in a department store. Eventually, with her help, he is able to uncover the true culprit of the crime which has its roots in the fatal evening in the eighteenth century.

Cast

• Gordon Harker as Constable Cheatle
• Binnie Hale as Sophie
• Eric Portman as Edward Chester
• Gibb McLaughlin as Sir Arthur Gannett
• Harry Tate as Taxi Driver
• Robert Holmes as Cncannon
• Eileen Peel as Barbara Ainsworth
• Donald Wolfit as Howard

References

1. ↑ BFI | Film & TV Database | HYDE PARK CORNER (1935) Archived 11 June 2009 at WebCite

Bibliography

• Low, Rachael. Filmmaking in 1930s Britain. George Allen & Unwin, 1985.
• Wood, Linda. British Films, 1927-1939. British Film Institute, 1986.

External links

• Hyde Park Corner at the Internet Movie Database