White Face

70 minutesCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglish

White Face (also known as Edgar Wallace's White Face the Fiend) is a 1932 British crime film directed by T. Hayes Hunter and starring Hugh Williams, Gordon Harker and Renee Gadd. The film is based on a play by Edgar Wallace.^[1]

Plot

A doctor becomes a blackmailer and a jewel thief in order to raise funds for a hospital in East London but is uncovered by an ambitious reporter.

Cast

• Hugh Williams as Michael Seeley
• Gordon Harker as Sam Hackett
• Norman McKinnel as Inspector Mason
• Renee Gadd as Janice Harman
• Richard Bird as Donald Bateman
• Nora Swinburne as Inez Landor
• Leslie Perrins as Louis Landor
• J.H. Roberts as Doctor Marford
• D. A. Clarke-Smith as Dr. Rudd
• Gibb McLaughlin as Sgt. Elk
• Jeanne Stuart as Gloria Gaye
• Clare Greet aa Mrs. Albert

Preservation status

The film is now considered a lost film, but the screenplay still exists.^[2] While working on this film, an affair between Hugh Williams and Renee Gadd began.^[3]

Critical reception

The New York Times wrote, "the British studios contribute a well-bred little mystery picture to the Broadway market in White Face, which is at the Broadway Theatre. An Edgar Wallace product, tailor-made according to the formula for these matters, it places a corpse in a slummy London street at midnight, sets the hounds of Scotland Yard baying up several wrong trees, and in good time whips the mask off the mysterious White Face. On Hollywood standards it is a pleasant enough item for the homicide enthusiasts, suffering generally from a faintly anemic quality and specifically from an absence of humor."^[4]

References

Bibliography

• Sweet, Matthew. Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British Cinema (Faber and Faber, 2005)

External links

• White Face at IMDb