''Lucky Jade'' is a 1937 British
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
crime film
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...
directed by
Walter Summers
Walter Summers (1892–1973) was a British film director and screenwriter.
Biography
Born in Barnstaple to a family of actors, British motion picture director Walter Summers began his career in the family trade; his first contact with filmmaki ...
and starring
Betty Ann Davies
Betty Ann Davies (24 December 1910 – 14 May 1955) was a British stage and film actress active from the 1920s to the 1950s. Davies made her first stage appearance at the Palladium in a revue in 1924. The following year she joined Cochran's Youn ...
,
John Warwick
John McIntosh Beattie (4 January 1905 – 10 January 1972), known professionally as John Warwick, was an Australian actor, and television dramatist.
Early life
He was born John McIntosh Beattie (many sources give "Beattle") at Bellingen, New S ...
and
Syd Crossley
Syd Crossley (18 November 1885 – 1 November 1960) was an English stage and film actor. Born in London in 1885, Crossley began his career as a music hall comedian. He appeared in more than 110 films, often cast as a butler, between 1925 an ...
. It was shot at
Welwyn Studios
Welwyn Studios was a British film studio located at Broadwater Road, Welwyn Garden City, in Hertfordshire. The facility operated between 1928 and 1950.
The studios were first constructed by British Instructional Films, and converted to make s ...
. The film's sets were designed by the
art director
Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games.
It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...
Duncan Sutherland
Duncan Sutherland (1 August 1905 – 1967) was a Scottish-born art director, based in England where he designed the sets for over eighty films and television series between the early 1930s and mid-1960s. Sutherland spent much of the 1940s employ ...
. It was a
quota quickie
The Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 ('' 17 & 18 Geo. V'') was an act of the United Kingdom Parliament designed to stimulate the declining British film industry. It received Royal Assent on 20 December 1927 and came into force on 1 April 1928.
D ...
released by the British subsidiary of
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
[Chibnall p.295]
Plot
A collector of
jade
Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group of ...
has an accident leading to the theft of his valuable collection, with a
maid
A maid, or housemaid or maidservant, is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era domestic service was the second largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids ...
posing as an
actress
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a Character (arts), character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek ...
wrongly suspected of the crime.
Cast
*
Betty Ann Davies
Betty Ann Davies (24 December 1910 – 14 May 1955) was a British stage and film actress active from the 1920s to the 1950s. Davies made her first stage appearance at the Palladium in a revue in 1924. The following year she joined Cochran's Youn ...
as Betsy Bunn
*
John Warwick
John McIntosh Beattie (4 January 1905 – 10 January 1972), known professionally as John Warwick, was an Australian actor, and television dramatist.
Early life
He was born John McIntosh Beattie (many sources give "Beattle") at Bellingen, New S ...
as John Marsden
* Claire Arnold as Mrs Sparsely
*
Syd Crossley
Syd Crossley (18 November 1885 – 1 November 1960) was an English stage and film actor. Born in London in 1885, Crossley began his career as a music hall comedian. He appeared in more than 110 films, often cast as a butler, between 1925 an ...
as Rickets
*
Derek Gorst
Derek Gorst (1903-1981) was a British actor.
Selected filmography
* '' Once a Thief'' (1935)
* '' Lucky Days'' (1935)
* '' Lucky Jade'' (1937)
* '' The Fatal Hour'' (1937)
* '' The Singing Cop'' (1938)
* ''The Gables Mystery'' (1938)
* ''Incident ...
as Bob Grant
* Gordon Court as Ricky Rickhart
* Richard Littledale as Dingbat Eisan
* Tony Wylde as Whitebait
References
Bibliography
* Low, Rachael. ''Filmmaking in 1930s Britain''. George Allen & Unwin, 1985.
* Wood, Linda. ''British Films, 1927-1939''. British Film Institute, 1986.
External links
*
1937 films
1930s crime comedy films
1930s English-language films
Films directed by Walter Summers
British crime comedy films
British black-and-white films
1937 comedy films
1930s British films
Films shot at Welwyn Studios
Films set in London
Quota quickies
Paramount Pictures films
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