Muriel Box's first film in Technicolor is conspicuous by its absence from the current season on the South Bank; the presence of Donald Pleasance and Michael Hordern in blackface (the latter rendered almost recognisable under huge moustache) probably doesn't help. This second version of the novel by Somerset Maugham can however be seen by discerning viewers thanks to the miracle of Talking Pictures.
Although inevitably it can only fail to rise to the heights of the 1938 version but Robert Newton is a more than adequate substitute for Charles Laughton, while Glynis Jones (soon to celebrate her hundredth birthday) entirely lacks the eccentricity of the unique Elsa Lanchester but amply supplies her own cow-eyed charm.
Although inevitably it can only fail to rise to the heights of the 1938 version but Robert Newton is a more than adequate substitute for Charles Laughton, while Glynis Jones (soon to celebrate her hundredth birthday) entirely lacks the eccentricity of the unique Elsa Lanchester but amply supplies her own cow-eyed charm.