Venus as a boy… First a Girl (1935), BFI Musicals Season

In his introduction, film historian John Oliver, apologised to fans of Gracie Fields after declaring Jessie Matthews as the leading singer, actor and dancer in British film during the thirties. It was hard not to agree seeing her energised and uplifting performance in this film; the Soho girl from Berwick Street, had elegance and a strong slim physique and could effortlessly lift a straight leg higher than her head with seemingly little effort. She was just as adept in raising a smile and whilst she quibbled about her slight overbite, her upturned nose and “big eyes”, jeepers, those peepers were made for the camera.

This was the fourth film the actress had made with Victor Saville and the director was the ideal match for the nervous star and even commissioned screen test after she had been cast just to show her how perfect she was for the role. First A Girl is essentially a remake of Viktor und Viktoria (Victor/Victoria) a 1933 German musical comedy film directed by Reinhold Schünzel starring Renate Müller as a woman pretending to be a female impersonator. This very Weimar storyline allowed for a startling array of double and even single entendre concerning he/she and the subject of “half and half” – pre-Kinsey code for those who "like” everyone. There's a constant play with the idea of "confused" sexuality with a man not sure why he feels so "strange" looking at another man and a woman taking in the news that her finance may be in love with another man - transvestism as comic-erotic?

Griffith Jones and Jessie Matthews

So it was that Jessie had her hair cropped Eton style; closer than a Brooksie bob without the bangs, cutting a striking figure in Mayfair dinner parties and saving a fortune on haircare. The style suits her delicate features to a “t” but she makes for a rather unconvincing boy; which is always half the point at this stage in proceedings. It was still too risqué for the US where several chunks were chopped and the whole film was banned in Maryland. Nevertheless, the film did reasonably well in America and her name was up in lights the same size as Clark Gable in Times Square; she was an international star.

First a Girl retains its charm and is still strikingly frank and funny to this day, helped by Jessie’s eternal good humour and a strong supporting cast including her husband Sonny Hale who’s full of comic energy himself as Victor, a down on his luck cross-dressing crooner. Jessie plays Elizabeth, a girl who sings to her co-workers in a chic London fashion house and lampoons Princes Wibble-Wobble, Princess Mironoff (Anna Lee, who has the most stunning smile), as they watch the latest show.

Jessie cuts a rug as only she can

Betty’s job is hanging on by a thread but gets a last chance to deliver an expensive dress to the Princess. She gets distracted on the way by an open audition and borrows the dress to make an impression but she can’t hit the right tone for the choir master and, bumps into Victor as the two walk out in dejected rejection. Caught in a rain shower, Victor loses his voice and has to enlist Betty to take his part – a girl playing a boy playing a girl… She goes down a storm despite escaping geese and slipping on paste but is talent spotted all the same by Mr. McLintock (Alfred Drayton) who lines up a big tour for Victor and his new mate “Bill”.

Now playing much smarter venues, the couple get spotted by the Princess again and her latest fiancé-or-not, Robert (Griffith Jones, Gemma Jones Dad, fact fans!) – as she later explains, engagements are like inoculations, some take some just don’t… Victor soon sets his sights on the Princess while Robert is strangely fascinated with Bill having been completely convinced that he was a girl on stage. But, as Victor impresses the Princess with his Shakespeare quotes, Bob and Bill get pickled at the bar and share large cigars; Bill’s eyes widening when presented with her eight-incher. They also bond over a shared love of the Mills Brothers, a nice touch!

Sonny Hale, Anna Lee, Griffith Jones and Jessie: Robert is "confused"...

The Princess is not at all convinced that Bill’s a boy and arranges to drive he and Victor down to their next engagement in Nice via a small hotel Robert knows where they lay a trap for the young lad. Bill survives their test and we see his splendid turn as Victoria at the theatre with Saville giving it the full Busby Berkley with dances choreographed by Ralph Reader that make up for any lack of budget with imagination and sheer pep! Matthews has a long, slim figure and leads off many a dance by leaning back and raising a long leg high into the air before hitting the ground hard with a deceptive swiftness. You can see why the Americans called her the “Dancing Divinity” as she has a smooth, sure-footed style all of her own that is indeed world class (sorry Gracie) to the extent that you could see her on stage with an Astaire or a Cagney. Powering her supernatural grace is the sincerest of smiles and a glint in her huge eyes string enough to power a reasonably sized family home.

The songs are memorable too, written by Americans Al Goodhart and Al Hoffman (both of whom would later have work featured in Singing in the Rain) along with Maurice Sigler. Add costumers from Coco Chanel and you have something approaching American standards of excellence. Now then, none of those films had a sweetheart quite the likes of our Jessie though did they and it’s a heart-warming thrill to see the Berwick Street Ballerina showing her star power on the big screen and in 35mm too!

Yeah, obviously a man

The story must conclude with Bill’s outing as a non-boy and, well, all the hoped-for happiness and laughter is delivered in the closing section of the film as both Betty and Victor are unleashed!  Robin Baker’s aim in curating this season has been to give us all a lift and with this film, as with so many others, he has succeeded! I saw it just after casting my vote in the General Election… for an hour and a half I didn’t think about politics AT ALL and as I walked home and as I sit here I’m still smiling about Jessie and frankly, feeling just a little bit in love.

The BFI Musicals series continues into 2020 – details on their website.

Detective deceptive... A Scandal in Bohemia (1921) and other shorts, Barbican with Stephen Horne

And this is the real me...on the right.

You know how TV series adaptations rarely work as well once transferred to the big screen? I think that the same may have been true of the Stoll Sherlock Holmes serials and their feature length off-shoots.

Between 1921 and 1923 three series of 15 roughly half hour episodes were made by the company all of which featured Eille Norwood as Holmes and Hubert Willis as Dr Watson. Two feature films were made of which the first was The Hound of the Baskervilles from 1922. Directed by Maurice Elvey – who directed the first series – the film doesn’t quite have the intensity of the short form blasts that had Sir Arthur Conan Doyle so impressed with Norwood’s performance.

Eille Norwood's disguise fools Joan Beverley... or does it?!

In these shorts we see far more of the Great Detective and his special abilities, intuitive leaps based on uncanny close observation all disguised by a moody detachment as well as his mastery of disguise… We may laugh a little now – not me but some of the audience – but Norwood was so adept at these physical transformations that he often tricked Elvey – who failed to recognise the bearded, shorter man before him as his Holmes rather than another hopeful come to audition for Watson.

Such japes are set out in the July 1921 copy of The Strand magazine which can be found on the Internet Archive. There’s an interview with Norwood in the very magazine in which Doyle first serialised Holmes and it reads like a very modern behind-the-scenes tale of the actor explaining his craft. Clearly Sherlock was as big a deal in 1921 as it was in 2010 when the Cumberbatch version took off, although Benedict will never know just how close the original author thought he was to his creation.

Is it a non-conformist minister or... a detective?

A Scandal in Bohemia (1921)

This was the seventh in the series and Norwood crams a lot of character into his screen time able enabled by Elvey’s economy and focus. So many stock Sherlock moments are concentrated into this film that it presents a much better impression of the actor Doyle described as having that rare quality of “glamour”.

Doyle was also impressed with his “quite unrivalled power of disguise…” and in Scandal we’re treated to a taxi cab driver so convincing that The Strand reported he was nearly ejected from the studios as a trespasser! He also plays a non-conformist minister in his attempts to trick Irene Adler (Joan Beverley) into revealing the whereabouts of her incriminating pictures of her affair with the King of Bohemia (Alfred Drayton).

A cab driver or a violin player?!

Of course Watson (the ever-present Hubert Willis) is fooled every time but Miss Adler proves to be altogether as smart as Sherlock…  

Miles Mander makes an appearance as Godfrey Norton, Irene’s true love interest and – surprisingly perhaps for those who have seen his later silent work, he’s not a bounder but a thoroughly decent chap!

The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921)

Made just after Scandal, this twisted tale was not one of Sir Doyle’s finest narratives… but the film does again show a playful, energetically-committed performance from Mr Norwood who was clearly having the time of his life.

Fooled you again Watson!

The story revolves around the disappearance of suburbanite Neville St. Clair (Robert Vallis) who is "something in the City" and its mysterious connection to the titular beggar man. Mrs. Nellie St. Clair (Paulette del Baze) witnesses the abduction and Sherlock is called in when the police can find no trace of her husband.

It’s a mystery and – as far as the plot is concerned – the Sherlock quote “… when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” was never more apt…

Elvey does, however, create a wonderfully dark London and the beggar’s pitch near Piccadilly is well chosen. You can find the film on YouTube but the 35mm prints we saw tonight were far cleaner and very well preserved. It’s always good to watch projected film!

The Final Problem (1923)

This was the last of the series and was directed by George Ridgwell who covered series two and three after Elvey moved on.

Here Holmes faces his greatest adversary Professor Moriarty (Percy Standing) both me n nearing the end of their tether after a series of bruising score draws in the streets of London. Sherlock makes a number of early signifying references to being willing to stop his nemesis even at the cost of his own life.

Will the make up come off for the last time?

He thwarts the evil schemer one more time and heads of for some relaxation with Watson at Cheddar Gorge… it’s not quite the Reichenbach Falls but you may guess what’s coming.

Two years on from the first two films and with a less able director, the film isn’t quite as enjoyable but that’s probably also because we know what’s coming…

The Final Problem was written in 1893 and viewers would have been fully aware that Sherlock would return in 1903’s The Adventure of the Empty House… at least Doyle told his audience how the Great Detective pulled it off.

Actor and author

Musical support was provided by Mr Stephen Horne who provided sympathetic syncopation on his usual array of instruments. Stephen’s music is improvised but he wove common themes across the three films and we may have a theme tune in progress for any future box set!

I took my mother, no mean pianist herself and a season ticket holder at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (for which her brother played for three decades) and she loved Stephen’s playing both in technical terms as well compositional: playing without music and on the spot he always manages to merge his sound with the vision.

Stephen is also playing along to another triple bill of Sherlock at the Pheonix Cinema on Sunday 5^th April – details are on their website. Don’t miss it if you want to see the closest thing to the real Sherlock Holmes… and that’s according to Sir Conan Doyle himself.