Crown v. Stevens (1936) User Reviews

A straight ahead little quota quickie with no twists or turns but plenty of moral ambiguity.

[max von meyerling · 7/10 · 12 May 2005]

A clean little quota quickie which has some affinities to post war film noir. The femme fatale in this one is a bit more dreary than her noir sisters. The greatest affinity however that this film, and most of the other better quota quickies, is that they had straight ahead, no nonsense scripts, and a throw away sense of economics - no one really cared what the final product was as long as it was done for a price- and therefore no interference from producers and executives (who didn't exist at the time). The finished films were simply effective stories told in no nonsense fashion. Compared to today's films with their interminable lists of co-producers, executive producers and just plain producers, all of whom have massive insecurity and ego problems as well as overwhelming inferiority complexes, causing them all to have to put in various proprietary bits of business to show that they played an important part in the production of the film, the good quota quickie, like the film noir, works like a palate refresher.

Despite the somewhat misleading title of Crown VS Stevens (it's not a courtroom drama) the picture gets into the story from the start and marches off in a direct line to the denouement in a very satisfying way. Another similarity with the noir is the absence of star ego. Stories have not been manipulated because some big ego wants all of the good lines to do or have the double do acts of daring do etc. In fact in Crown VS. Stevens, a British Warner production, the lead actor Patric Knowles would be whisked off to Hollywood to appear as Errol Flynn's brother in Charge of the Light Brigade and begin a long career. In Crown Vs. Stevens what you see is what you get.

There are no twists or turns to the story, but there are various forking paths open to moral interpretation. Taken on this level there are layers upon layers of moral ambiguity, not the least of which is the identification with the crimes of Crime and Punishment, except in this film there is absolutely no guilt creeping into the consciousness of the femme fatale, the sociopathic element that was the hallmark of the noir. But that's getting a little too carried away and heaping too much significance on this amusing little film.

If you think you know where this is going you are so wrong

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 3 March 2013]

This British thriller starts out like a Hitchcock "wrong man" film. A basically good and honest fellow (Patrick Knowles as Chris Jensen) buys an engagement ring for a girl by borrowing from an unscrupulous money lender. The girl turns out to be a con artist and runs out on him the next day, taking the ring with her. Chris' boss is a skinflint and won't give him a raise or an advance on salary, and the money lender is threatening to call the police if not repaid. Chris goes to the money lender that night to try to work out a deal and finds him shot dead. He looks around the office and finds a woman, revolver in hand, threatening to do the same to him if he moves or makes a sound, and said woman then makes her getaway. Chris thinks about going to the police, but then he notices that someone has thrown some of the pages of the money lender's records - which include records of his debt - into the fire. So, he just closes the office door and walks back home, hoping he hasn't been noticed.

What happens next is better than most of Hitchcock's work because - I will tell you this much - Chris is never accused of anything. Apparently, guns were registered in England even back in 1936, because the police are going around examining every revolver on their record books, and they seem to know where every gun in London is supposed to be. Thus the police are looking for a recently fired gun and Chris doesn't even own one, thus he is off the police radar completely. Chris has a few pangs of conscience, but ultimately life is looking up for him from this point forward. He starts dating an interior designer and it starts to get serious, and his debt for the ring has been erased courtesy of the murderer.

So what does go wrong? Chris runs into the killer in the most unlikely of places, and what a piece of work the killer turns out to be. Due to what they have in common, (I'm not going to tell you) Chris decides to stay mum about the killer's identity. However, the killer has plans that involve even more killing and not well thought out plans at that. This causes Chris and the killer to come together in one key scene at the end of the film.

This was a very well done film that will keep you guessing until the end, but mainly it had me wondering in regards to the killer - What were you thinking? Are you really THAT dumb? Watch and find out what I mean by all of this.

Sharp Little Thriller

[Handlinghandel · 6/10 · 21 September 2007]

A few years later, this would have been a film noir. It's an early work by Michael Powell. And the guy knew something about noir: How about "Peeping Tom"! Patric Knowles is perfect as the central character. He is a bit timid. He's genuinely attractive; so we understand why the ladies like him. He has a gentle quality that makes us care what happens to him.

This movie, like much film noir, involves a mercenary woman. There's a good woman, too.

It's directed smoothly and moves along quickly. I can't think of anything to fault it for. It's not a great movie. But it's an extremely skillful presentation.

okay entry from Teddington

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 22 March 2008]

As part of TCM's rolling out of films from Teddington, a small British studio, "Crown vs. Stevens," a 1936 film was shown. These Teddington movies are done on the cheap, with poor production values, no names in the cast, and made very quickly. Nevertheless, the studio managed to pull them off with some good results here and there.

The very handsome Patric Knowles, who would soon come to Hollywood, plays a man taken advantage of by his fiancée - she takes off on him before he's paid for her ring, which she refuses to return. His nasty cheapskate employer won't give him a raise or an advance, so he's forced to go to the seller to explain that he can't pay. He's promptly threatened with legal action if he doesn't show up with the money. When he returns, sans money, he finds a woman has just killed the man and burned his books. It turns out to be his boss' wife, and she begs for his silence. He finds himself in a moral dilemma.

This movie held my interest and has a very satisfying denouement. We see so many B movies done in the U.S., why not some from Britain as well? Teddington isn't big on glamor and stars but seems to have tried for decent stories.

An interesting quota quickie

[rdoyle29 · 7/10 · 27 December 2022]

Patric Knowles is engaged to Mabel Poulton, who leaves him and absconds with the as-yet-paid-for ring. This leaves Knowles indebted to unpleasant money lender Morris Harvey, who is not inclined to be forgiving. Knowles shows up at Harvey's shop only to find him murdered and encounters Beatrix Thomson fleeing the scene. He soon discovers that Thomson is his employer's (Frederick Piper) wife, and she tries to involve him in a scheme to kill him.

This is essentially a low budget quota quickie made by Teddington Studios, a British studio bought by Warner Brothers to produce British B films to pair with their A films in Britain. Despite being an obviously low budget outing, there are a few things of interest.

The main point of interest is that it's an early directorial outing for Michael Powell, although truth be told, besides being competently assembled, it doesn't bear much of his stamp. Thomson clearly dominates the film, and it's a welcome shift when she becomes the focus in the second half. It's also worth noting that even though the film bears the Warner Brothers logo, it was never intended to play outside of Britain, so it has more that a few elements that don't comply with the Production Code.

British character actor Bernard Miles pops up as a cop.

Pedestrian Thriller

[barnesgene · 6/10 · 20 September 2007]

If you're looking for directorial distinctiveness (because the film was directed by the great Michael Powell), you'll be hard pressed to find much of it in this movie. Powell simply moves the story along deftly, managing the many dead ends and fresh starts in the plot so that they all seem quite natural. The plot itself is tepid by today's standards (and possibly also by the standards of the time). Certainly the shock value of a woman's role in the death of a moneylender is minimal. Some of the acting is a bit over-the-top, but when the characters appear at their most natural in their day-to-day working-stiff lives, they shine the most. Overall, as satisfying as the experience was, I couldn't give this film more than six stars.

City life, city problems

[TomSunhaus · 7/10 · 11 October 2020]

I find this film is an interesting character piece. It reminded me of Hitchcock's 'Blackmail' (1929). It is not easy making a film where the main character is flawed. Other reviewers talked of moral ambiguity in a negative way, but clean, clear country values often don't exist in the city. In Spanish language the word for city is the same as the word for caution or warning. To me this is an extended view of the difficult moral choices that people living in a city make. Dating, marriage & ethics in an economic environment. 'The Naked City' (1948) also covers this territory. I would classify this movie as a universal type story. Film noir films is said to have been made between 1940 & 1958; but I agree with another reviewer that this is an early example.

Surprisingly good for such a simple film

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 19 September 2007]

For a low budget film, this one really delivers--mostly due to the way the film plays out during the last third of the movie. This movie was produced for Warner Brothers film by their sister studio, Teddington Studios and most of the people in it are not familiar to American audiences, other than perhaps Patric Knowles.

The plot, at least at first, seems rather pedestrian, as you think that the movie is about poor old Patric and his horrid girlfriend. However, despite this appearing to be the course of the film, it later diverges and becomes a film about the awful wife of Knowles' skin-flint boss. While it appears she might have killed a man, Knowles is even more alarmed when it appears she isn't finished--and is trying to kill her hubby as well!! Now as far as the film goes, the standout character is the boss' wife, as she is unrepentantly evil and cold. Rarely does a film show a woman as truly awful and conniving as she is--making this a fascinating character study.

Considering how short and tidy this little film is, it's well worth a look. For this type of movie, it's amazingly good.

English Mystery

[whpratt1 · 7/10 · 18 January 2008]

This is a very different English mystery film dealing with a woman who kills a man who is a crooked loan shark and has made threats to a woman named Doris Stevens (Beatrix Thomson). Doris is discovered by Chris Jansen as he looks in a closet and finds her with a fired pistol in her hand. It just so happens that this lady Stevens is the wife of his boss and he decides to keep his mouth shut about her involvement in this murder. Chris Jansen is also in debt to this same loan shark for a diamond ring he borrowed for his marriage to his intended girlfriend. Doris Stevens realizes that her husband is an old skinflint and will not give her any kinds of money like other women and she begins to think about killing her husband. The plot of the story takes many twists and turns and will keep you in suspense right to the very end of this British film.

"I Haven't Quite Bought It!"

[davidcarniglia · 8/10 · 13 April 2019]

This murder mystery begins quickly and smoothly--an average guy in over his head stumbles upon a murder. Jensen (Patrick Knowles) has been jilted by the floozy Ella (Googie Withers) only to be implicated by his boss's wife Doris (Beatrix Thomson) for her killing of the loan shark they're both mixed up with. Meanwhile, Doris, bored with her elderly husband Arthur (Frederick Piper), and encouraged by Ella, gets in deeper by plotting to kill her husband so she can enjoy the high life.

Fortunately for Arthur, he somewhat improbably survives both of Doris's murder methods--sleeping pills and asphyxiation. That's thanks to the handy hand of fate. Chris shows up (with Glennis Lorime's Mollie) in time to rescue his boss. Fate here isn't the same as luck; it's more like karma. As in film-noir, fate represents the intervention of mundane reality in the machinations of crime. The criminal act,or plot--here it's murder and attempted murder--is an attempt to overcome civilization with a bolt of chaos. Like an addiction, the chaos engendered by crime loses power If it can't maintain its influence over people. Unexpectedly in this tense atmosphere, the actual ending is kind of funny. Doris, realizing she's up for more than one crime, she muses somewhat diffidently over how many trials there'll be.

This was a much better movie than I expected. The plot made sense, the acting was pretty good (I don't see why folks don't like Thomson's performance), the atmosphere was very noirish, especially in the first half, and the ending worked well. It's true that we know Doris has killed Bayleck (the loan shark), but some good crime dramas create the mystery from how the murderer gets caught, not in finding out who committed the murder. At the same time, there's mystery in whether Doris will kill Arthur; also, her attempt to do so becomes the hook that catches her up in the Bayleck murder.

The characters are interesting. Doris is desperately unhappy, devious and obviously dangerous; Ella's completely selfish. Mollie, on the other hand, is very pleasant; Arf (Raymond Purcell) is as goofy as his name implies. But Alf and Mollie have the important function of counterbalancing the hell-bent characters. Chris is in the middle of all this. He's less than a commanding personality, but he's not weak either. He has the strength to stand up to both Arthur and Doris, and the sense to appreciate Mollie and Arf. In this pre-noir world, the hero is more believable as a put-upon person such as Chris, surviving on his wits alone.

A very entertaining experience. Nicely paced and fairly nuanced as well. 8/10.

This is Not a Courtroom Drama!!

[kidboots · 7/10 · 18 March 2011]

Despite the rather formal title, it has nothing to do with trials or court cases, just a straightforward murder mystery with some rather bad acting by the "bad" girl!! Quota quickies were Britain's answer to try and stop American domination of the cinema, at that time reaching it's zenith with films like "The General", "Ben Hur" and "Wings". Unfortunately as funding for British films became easier to get, "quota quickies" created a glut of sometimes inferior films and there was also the problem that cinema owners were loath to show British movies - the public wanted their Garbo, Harlow, Gable and Barrymore!!! They did give a chance to young up and coming directors like Michael Powell, whose career took a springboard leap with the birth of the quota quickie. Googie Withers also started her career in a Michael Powell film - in true Hollywood fashion she came to audition as an extra for "The Girl in the Crowd", when one of the leads was sacked and Googie was given her chance.

Chris (Patric Knowles) is in love with Mamie (he thinks) - so much so that he has bought her an engagement ring - on approval of course!! Mamie turns out to be a real tart, who runs away with a local tough and also forgets to give back his ring, which he hasn't paid for!! He needs 20 quid in a hurry but when he asks for an advance on his salary, his employer, Mr. Stevens is not sympathetic. When he visits the jeweler, a well known low life, he finds him dead and a desperate girl with a gun behind the curtain. He later finds out that the woman is Mrs. Stevens, an ex showgirl who has married Stevens for his money but comes to realise he is a real skinflint!!

Chris, just visiting the house with office errands realises Doris wishes her husband harm and when he comes down with the flu, that is all the excuse she needs to rush to the chemist for "just a little something to make him sleep". (If he didn't feel ill before, the awful "loud" wallpaper in the house wouldn't help)!! It also doesn't help that Beatrix Thomson is a pretty bad actress, who doesn't seem quite at ease in front of the camera. A look at her credits on IMDb shows only a few films, which may explain her "nervousness". On yet another errand, Chris and Molly (girls seem to find Chris very attractive) hear an engine in the locked garage and while Doris tries to divert them away from the garage in her "nervous" way - surprise, surprise!! the police arrive.

It is not a great movie but a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon. Googie Withers played Ella, Doris's friend from her show days.

Recommended.

Launching Ground for 2 end of the road for 1

[malcolmgsw · 6/10 · 27 October 2007]

Patric Knowles is a reliable lead in this quota quickie.Within a year he would be supporting Errol Flynn in The Charge Of The Light Brigade.Bernard Miles is appearing in his fourth film at the beginning of what would be an illustrious career on screen but primarily on stage.Mabel Poulton was a big star of the silent screen.However she had one problem and that was she had a cockney accent,Now whilst this was no hindrance to Michael Caine 30 years later,it was alas to poor Mabel.In those days it meant that you were going to end up playing supporting roles.In a parallel to John Gilbert she was handed a lucrative long term contract just before the end of the silent era and just like Gilbert her descent was equally rapid.This in fact was her penultimate film.After one more film her career in films ended.This film is a fairly conventional quota quickie with a rather pat ending.Always interesting but rather less than engrossing.

Disappointing

[Michael_Elliott · 27 February 2008]

Crown v. Stevens (1936)

** (out of 4)

Michael Powell directs this film about an apparent abused wife (Beatrix Thomson) who gets an innocent clerk (Patrick Knowles) involved with her dirty schemes. The only interesting thing about this film is its history. When Britain put a ban on films from the U.S., Warner went there and made Teddington Studios, which is where this film was made. These films were only allowed to be shown in Britain so this film was never seen in America until TCM included it in their "Lost and Found" series. As for the actual film, Powell just hasn't worked for me much as a director. He tells this story in an interesting way in the fact that there's no plot twists or turns but just a straight story. The only problem is that this story bored the hell out of me to the point where I was hoping the movie would end after the twenty-minute mark. The two leads are pretty bland in the film as well.

Nastiness All Around

[boblipton · 7/10 · 11 April 2023]

Patric Knowles wants to marry Glennis Lorimer, but his boss, Frederick Piper, is a mean, disagreeable man, who will neither give him a raise, nor advance him money. Piper's wife, Beatrix Thomson, knows he's not a nice person. He won't buy her clothes, won't abide drinking, and complains when she goes out with friends. However, he does carry a lot of life insurance.

Had James M. Cain seen this movie before he wrote DOUBLE INDEMNITY? There's no need to assume he did, and the thought of murdering an unwanted husband for the insurance money was doubtless in circulation before Laurence Meynell wrote the novel this movie was based on. One wouldn't think a British quota quickie would be in circulation in America, but the director was Michael Powell, who had been on the movie map for several years by this point. He doesn't hold anything back, as Piper's unpleasantness drives Miss Thomson on the path to murder, and dim-witted customers annoy Knowles and Miss Lorimer. With Googie Withers, Mabel Poulton, and Bernard Miles.

Splendid Beatrix Thompson

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 18 November 2023]

"Crown v. Stevens" is a fairly routine programmer, unpilfted by Beatrix Thomson's cool, calm and collected femme fatale: our first glimpse of her is with a smoking gun in her hand after she has just shot a man, and she just goes on from there. She never over-dramatizes things, either; she just does what she feels is necessary. She is by far the most interesting character in this otherwise forgettable film, which indeed would have been forgotten today had it not been one of the early credits of celebrated British director Michael Powell. In short, come for Powell, stay for Thompson. **1/2 out of 4.