A Night in Montmartre (1931) User Reviews

Pleasing Comedy-Mystery

[boblipton · 6/10 · 14 March 2017]

Hugh Williams is a poor artist in Paris. His landlord, Franklyn Dyall, threatens to write his father that he is wasting his time and allowance in Paris having a good time. When Dyall is murdered, suspicion falls on Williams, encouraged by Austin Trevor, who wants Williams' girl Heather Angell. Williams' dithery father, played by Horace Hodges, turns up to solve the murder and implicates Williams even further.

Although this movie is slagged in David Quinlan's British SOUND FILMS, it is a very happy little comedy-drama. The set design of the night club and apartments above it look good; Sydney Blythe runs the camera with some nice movement, and it is certainly a pleasure to see Williams, Angell and Binnie Barnes right at the beginnings of their screen careers. Hodges turns out to be wonderful, but I suspect that is because the role was probably originally played by the co-author of the play this is based upon, Miles Malleson.

I also suspect that Mr. Quinlan did not see this movie, or perhaps viewed it as not being influenced by the Russian Academicians and therefore inherently wrong. A lot of early British sound films have been turning up recently and many of them have been a pleasure to watch. That's good enough for me.

Passable Quota Quickie

[malcolmgsw · 6/10 · 23 December 2012]

This is a passable quota quickie made by Gaumont British.The film is set in a Parisian nightclub.The set is a delight of art deco with flashing light bulbs.Williams is an artist who lives in a flat above the club.He owes money to the club owner.The club owner is involved in blackmail.So not surprisingly he is murdered and his body is found by Williams hidden in his flat.As is usual in such films the main character always does the most stupid of things.in this case he hides the body in the attic above.Horace Hodges plays his father who comes visiting.he is an amateur detective.he is sitting in the flat when blood from the body starts dripping through the ceiling.So then we have the denouement with all the suspects present and Hodges using his deductive powers to work out the guilty party.Whilst the story is fairly routine the film is a cut above the usual quota quickie.The camera actually moves from time to time and the editing is more than just pasting together strips of film.

A murder mystery in Montmartre

[robert-temple-1 · 5/10 · 7 August 2017]

This is a British film with an entirely British cast. It is all made in a studio except for a few initial night scenes of Paris to set the mood. One of those opening shots is of the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre, as it was circa 1930. I was amazed to see that it said MOULIN ROUGE CINEMA on the front (with the usual windmill sails lit up above). Apparently the nightclub had been transformed into a cinema at that time, something which I had not known. The film makes little effort to appear to be French, and is entirely produced for home consumption in Britain, with no pretensions whatever at authenticity other than the use of French names. The film is directed by Leslie S. Hiscott, who also adapted it for the screen from a play by Miles Malleson (1888-1969, also an actor) and Walter Peacock. Malleson has an entry in Wikipedia, but in its list of Malleson's plays it neglects to mention the play on which this film is based, though it does mention his work on this screenplay. The next year he also wrote the screenplay for the charming film THE WATER GIPSIES (1932, see my review). And in 1934 he wrote the screenplay for that year's film of LORNA DOONE with Margaret Lockwood. As for Walter Peacock, he was a friend of R. C. Sheriff, was active in the London theatre in the 1920 and 1930s, and was connected with a production of a Pirandello play, but it is difficult to learn more of him. He did nothing else connected with the screen. The director, Hiscott, was extremely prolific. In this year he made five films, in 1932 he made nine, and in 1933 he made thirteen. He was the co-founder of the small but much loved Twickenham Studios just outside London. He retired in 1956. It seems that many of his films are lost, or otherwise they have not been rescued from the archives yet. As for the cast in this film, three of the actors were in only their second film: Hugh Williams, the male lead, Heather Angel, the female lead, and Binnie Barnes. Each had been in one film before, though none of them the same. Heather Angel, aged 21, comes across as very feeble here, but she would prove to be more substantial later in her career. She appeared in four Bulldog Drummond films as Phyllis Clavering, opposite John Howard (see my reviews of those for 1937, 1938, and two in 1939). She had previously had a bit part in BULLDOG DRUMMOND of 1929 (see my review). She went to Hollywood to make films and eventually died in California in 1986. Horace Hodges plays a very eccentric character role. (He appeared in films between 1930 and 1939, his last role being as the butler in Hitchcock's JAMAICA INN of that year.) The story of this film is very slight and unoriginal. Hugh Williams plays a dashing young man living in an atelier in Montmartre, who wants to be an artist. His father is a rich businessman who sends him too small an allowance to permit him to marry his beloved, Heather Angel. She is lusted after by a horrid supercilious man who is wealthy and hates Williams, and Williams himself is being persecuted by an equally horrid landlord, who also lusts after Angel. That's a lot of lust, but it is Paris, after all. The landlord is mysteriously murdered and Williams is blamed, but is of course innocent. Can he escape being arrested, tried, and executed for murder? The evidence is all against him. And who really murdered the landlord? It is all a mystery. For the answers, see the film.

One nice song

[calvertfan · 4/10 · 2 April 2002]

A Night In Montmartre goes through several phases. It starts off promising, gets dull, suddenly gets very thrilling in the advent of a murder, and then falls back down into the mundane. The high point of the movie is certainly the song "Chere, c'est vous" which is sung and performed enchantingly. If only there were more of this and less of the bumbling!