Tom Walls was a very famous comedy actor in the thirties usually in very, very silly farces playing very, very silly characters. This is not one of those silly farces he was famous for, it's a routine comedy crime caper and it's not his "usual home" and I can see why the comments at the time were like: He should stick to what he's good at.
The problem with this is twofold: it's not that funny and the character he plays, an upper-class gentleman thief without any of the charm of say David Niven or Warren William would have had is not likeable. There were lots of likeable gentleman thieves in 1930s pictures but, without denigrating Mr Walls talents, they were played by proper actors, not comedians. He does his best to warm "Drake" to us - he steals from the rich, gives to the poor, helps sick children, builds hospitals, rights wrongs and is a general all round good guy but Tom Walls, as good a comedy character actor as he was, picked the wrong character to make a whole film out of.
Can you imagine TROUBLE IN PARADISE but with Miriam Hopkins and Kay Francis fighting over W C Fields instead of Herbert Marshall? I think the answer's probably no but I suspect that Tom Wall would probably have thought - yes - and I can do that as well.
The third problem I had with this - was the fact that sweet and lovely Lilli Palmer is 24 and she is meant to be head over heels in love with Tom Walls - not the most attractive man in the world when he was younger but now he's in his late fifties. He's old enough to be her father and looks like her grandfather - it just feels wrong! This was directed by Albert de Courville who was in his late fifties as well. He also made the (much better and much funnier) THERE GOES THE BRIDE several years earlier. In that, 24 year old Jessie Matthews (the sexiest and most beautiful woman in English cinema at the time) was herself head over heels with a guy also in his late fifties. I wonder did Mr de Courville have some issues he was trying to get out through his work!
The problem with this is twofold: it's not that funny and the character he plays, an upper-class gentleman thief without any of the charm of say David Niven or Warren William would have had is not likeable. There were lots of likeable gentleman thieves in 1930s pictures but, without denigrating Mr Walls talents, they were played by proper actors, not comedians. He does his best to warm "Drake" to us - he steals from the rich, gives to the poor, helps sick children, builds hospitals, rights wrongs and is a general all round good guy but Tom Walls, as good a comedy character actor as he was, picked the wrong character to make a whole film out of.
Can you imagine TROUBLE IN PARADISE but with Miriam Hopkins and Kay Francis fighting over W C Fields instead of Herbert Marshall? I think the answer's probably no but I suspect that Tom Wall would probably have thought - yes - and I can do that as well.
The third problem I had with this - was the fact that sweet and lovely Lilli Palmer is 24 and she is meant to be head over heels in love with Tom Walls - not the most attractive man in the world when he was younger but now he's in his late fifties. He's old enough to be her father and looks like her grandfather - it just feels wrong! This was directed by Albert de Courville who was in his late fifties as well. He also made the (much better and much funnier) THERE GOES THE BRIDE several years earlier. In that, 24 year old Jessie Matthews (the sexiest and most beautiful woman in English cinema at the time) was herself head over heels with a guy also in his late fifties. I wonder did Mr de Courville have some issues he was trying to get out through his work!