Mar 11, 2023
Death at Broadcasting House (1934)
"You can't go in there, there's a play being broadcast."
"I'm looking for Variety?"
"That's eight floors down."
"Yes, but I've just come eight floors up!"
"Then it'll be sixteen floors from where you started."
#death at broadcasting house#1934#british cinema#crime film#reginald denham#val gielgud#eric maschwitz#basil mason#ian hunter#austin trevor#lilian oldland#henry kendall#peter haddon#betty ann davies#jack hawkins#donald wolfit#robert rendel#gordon mcleod#elisabeth welch#hannen swaffer#highly entertaining (if creeky and over egged) inter war crime melodrama‚ but this is also a fascinating record of the earliest days#of the bbc (a little over a decade old at this point‚ and radio broadcasts of the kind featured here had been regularly transmitted for#just 2 years!). one of the most startling revelations? early radio variety shows apparently included dance acts. on the radio. i...#novelty aside this is still a solid little potboiler. Denham really embraces the visual possibilities of his medium (the same can't always#be said for early brit cinema‚ which i always tend to think of as being a bit behind America‚ and certainly behind the europeans).#performances are very of their time but still quite charming‚ and even the comic relief fop character is really quite likeable#fun to spot a Very Baby jack Hawkins as one of the suspects and Donald Wolfit in his screen debut as the detested victim killed off by a#colleague (im sure there were many costars later in his career who envied that possibility‚ Wolfit being infamously difficult and demanding#in later life). a lot of old hokum really‚ but very charming and silly with it.