''Old English'' is a 1930 American

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

film directed by Alfred E. Green and produced by

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

The film is based on the 1924 Broadway play of the same name by John Galsworthy. The film stars

George Arliss George Arliss (born Augustus George Andrews; 10 April 1868 – 5 February 1946) was an English actor, author, playwright, and filmmaker who found success in the United States. He was the first British actor to win an Academy Award – which he ...

Leon Janney Leon Janney (April 1, 1917 – October 28, 1980) was an American actor and radio personality from 1920 to 1980. Career Leon Elbert Janney was born in Ogden, Utah, to Nathan Haines Janney and Bernice Rebecca Kohn. The names of his parents are co ...

Betty Lawford Betty Lawford (February 1, 1912 – November 20, 1960) was a United States-based English film and stage actress. Her parents, Ernest Lawford and Janet Slater Lawford, were also actors, and she was a cousin of the actor and socialite Peter Lawfo ...

and

Doris Lloyd Hessy Doris Lloyd (3 July 1891 – 21 May 1968) was an English–American film and stage actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles in ''The Time Machine'' (1960) and ''The Sound of Music'' (1965). Lloyd appeared in two Academy Award w ...

. The film had its premiere August 21, 1930 at the Warner's Theatre in Hollywood.

Synopsis

Heythorp is an old shipowner who finds himself on the verge of bankruptcy. He worries about his grandchildren, who are currently being taken care of by the miserly Mrs. Larne, the widowed wife of his son. She asks Heythorp for money, but suspecting that she will use the money on herself, he refuses. Although Heythorp is being hounded by creditors, he manages to get a loan by using some shady dealings for which he may be prosecuted. Heythorp wants to use the money for an investment, which will provide an independent allowance for his beloved grandchildren, Jock and Phyllis, which the greedy Mrs. Larne cannot touch. Although he manages to arrange everything so that he can die in peace, he is uncovered and threatened with exposure. In the end, Heythorp manages to escape punishment for his underhanded scheme.

Cast

as Heythorp *

as Jock *

as Phyllis *

as Mrs. Larne *

Harrington Reynolds Harrington Reynolds was an English actor who appeared on stage and in a number of movies. He was best known for ''Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and ...

as Gilbert Farney *

Reginald Sheffield Matthew Reginald Sheffield Cassan (18 February 1901 – 8 December 1957) was an English-American actor. Life He was born as Matthew Reginald Sheffield Cassan on 18 February 1901 in the St. George's, Hanover Square district of London, to Matt ...

as Bob Pillin *

Murray Kinnell Murray Kinnell (24 July 1889 – 11 August 1954) was a British-born American actor, recognized for playing smooth, gentlemanly, although rather shady characters. He appeared in 71 films in the USA between the pre-code era of 1930 and 1937. He wa ...

as Charles Ventnor *

Ivan F. Simpson Ivan F. Simpson (8 February 1875 – 12 October 1951) was a Scottish film and stage actor. Life and career Simpson was born on 8 February 1875 in Glasgow, Scotland, and went as a young man to New York City, where he worked for four dec ...

as Joe Pillin *

Ethel Griffies Ethel Griffies (born Ethel Woods; 26 April 1878 – 9 September 1975) was an English actress of stage, screen, and television. She is remembered for portraying the ornithologist Mrs. Bundy in Alfred Hitchcock's classic '' The Birds'' (1963). Sh ...

as Adela Heythorp * John Rogers as Budgeon - a Shareholder * Henrietta Goodwin as Letty, the Larne's Maid

Preservation

The film survives complete and has been released by the

Warner Archive The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.' library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the inte ...

on DVD. A print is preserved in the Library of Congress collection.''Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress'', (<-book title) p.131 c.1978 by The American Film Institute

References

External links

* * 1930 films American black-and-white films American films based on plays Films directed by Alfred E. Green Warner Bros. films Films scored by Louis Silvers 1930 drama films American drama films 1930s English-language films 1930s American films {{1930s-drama-film-stub