''The Clue of the New Pin'' is a 1929
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
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
Arthur Maude
Arthur John Maude (23 July 1880 – 9 January 1950) was an English actor, screenwriter, and film director.
Biography
Maude was born Arthur John Maud on 23 July 1880 in Pontefract, West Riding, Yorkshire, to William Robert Maud (1849–1919) and ...
and starring
Benita Hume
Benita Hume (14 October 1907 – 1 November 1967) was an English theatre and film actress. She appeared in more than 40 films between 1925 and 1955.
Life and career
She was married to film actor Ronald Colman from 1938 to his death in 1958 ...
,
Kim Peacock
Kim Peacock (1901–1966) was born on 24 March 1901 in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. He was an actor and writer, known for ''Midnight at the Wax Museum'' (1936), ''BBC Sunday-Night Theatre'' (1950) and ''Hit Parade'' (1952). He died on 26 Decem ...
, and
Donald Calthrop
Donald Esme Clayton Calthrop (11 April 1888 – 15 July 1940) was an English stage and film actor.
Born in London, Calthrop was educated at St Paul's School and made his first stage appearance at eighteen years of age at the Comedy Theatr ...
. It was made at
Beaconsfield Studios
Beaconsfield Film Studios is a British television and film studio in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. The studios were operational as a production site for films in 1922, and continued producing films - and, later, TV shows - until the 1960s. Bri ...
.
The film was one of only 10 filmed in British Phototone, a
sound-on-disc Sound-on-disc is a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or play back sound in sync with a motion picture. Early sound-on-disc systems used a mechanical interlock with the movie projector, while more recent system ...
system which used 12-inch discs. All of the other nine films made in this process were short films. In March 1929, this film and ''
The Crimson Circle'', filmed in the
De Forest Phonofilm
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
Introduction
In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, ...
sound-on-film
Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog ...
system, were 'trade-shown' to cinema exhibitors.
BFI Database entry
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This film is an adaptation of the 1923 novel '' The Clue of the New Pin'' by Edgar Wallace
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer.
Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was a war correspondent during th ...
. It was later remade in 1961.
Plot
A wealthy recluse is murdered in an absolutely sealed room.
Cast
* Benita Hume
Benita Hume (14 October 1907 – 1 November 1967) was an English theatre and film actress. She appeared in more than 40 films between 1925 and 1955.
Life and career
She was married to film actor Ronald Colman from 1938 to his death in 1958 ...
as Ursula Ardfern
* Kim Peacock
Kim Peacock (1901–1966) was born on 24 March 1901 in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. He was an actor and writer, known for ''Midnight at the Wax Museum'' (1936), ''BBC Sunday-Night Theatre'' (1950) and ''Hit Parade'' (1952). He died on 26 Decem ...
as Tab Holland
* Donald Calthrop
Donald Esme Clayton Calthrop (11 April 1888 – 15 July 1940) was an English stage and film actor.
Born in London, Calthrop was educated at St Paul's School and made his first stage appearance at eighteen years of age at the Comedy Theatr ...
as Yeh Ling
* John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Briti ...
as Rex Trasmere
* Harold Saxon-Snell
Harold Saxon-Snell (1889–1956) was a British stage and film actor. He appeared in twenty-three films during the silent and early sound eras. He is often credited as H. Saxon-Snell or Harold Snell. He and actress Kathleen Boutall married in 1 ...
as Walters
* Johnny Butt
John William H. Butt (1870–1931) was an English film actor of the silent era.
He was born in Bradford and died in North Bierley, West Yorkshire.
Selected filmography
* ''The Chimes'' (1914)
* ''Far from the Madding Crowd'' (1915)
* ''The Gra ...
as Wellington Briggs
* Colin Kenny
James Colin Ramsey Kenny (born December 10, 1943) is a former Canadian Senator. A member of the Liberal Party, he was appointed to the Senate in 1984 by Pierre Trudeau to represent the Rideau region of Ontario.
On January 31, 2018 it was anno ...
as Inspector Carver
References
Bibliography
* Low, Rachael. ''History of the British Film, 1918-1929''. George Allen & Unwin, 1971.
External links
*
''The Clue of the New Pin'' (1929) at SilentEra
1929 films
1929 crime films
Films directed by Arthur Maude
Films based on British novels
Films based on works by Edgar Wallace
British crime films
Films shot at Beaconsfield Studios
Transitional sound films
British black-and-white films
1920s English-language films
1920s British films
{{1920s-UK-film-stub