Thark **** (1932, Ralph Lynn, Tom Walls, Robertson Hare, Evalyn Bostock, Mary Brough, Gordon James) – Classic Movie Review 10,692

Ralph Lynn (8 March 1882 – 8 August 1962).

Director Tom Walls’s 1932 comedy Thark is the film of one of the best of the famous Ben Travers’s Aldwych farces, the hit of London popular theatre in the 20s, with the plot mainly an excuse to get some supreme silly-ass players (Ralph Lynn, Tom Walls, Robertson Hare and Evalyn Bostock) assing around in a haunted house, who have sold it to new owner Mrs Todd (Mary Brough), agree to spend the night there to show her that there is no ghost.

Tom Walls plays Sir Hector Benbow, who, acting as legal guardian of the previous owner Kitty Stratton (Evalyn Bostock), sells the Thark country house to Mrs Todd, who complains it is haunted, so Benbow and his nephew set out to demonstrate otherwise.

Walls’s guileless direction makes no concessions to cinema or modern-day pacing, so some patience is required. Otherwise the peerless quality of the acting and writing is evident, and there is much pleasure and there are many laughs to be gained, especially from the zany situations, comic business and wacky lines (‘The mistress is coming.’ ‘Very good sir.’ ‘Very good be damned, it’s very bad.’).

Gordon James (in real life Sydney Lynn, the brother of Ralph Lynn) makes a six-course meal of his turn as the creepy butler, Death (‘You go up and I’ll bring the sheets’). Gordon James appeared alongside his brother Ralph Lynn and Robertson Hare in all 12 of the Aldwych farces.

The script by Ben Travers is a screen adaptation of his original 1927 Aldwych farce play of the same name.

Robertson Hare (Hook), Mary Brough (Mrs. Todd), Tom Walls (Sir Hector Benbow), Ralph Lynn (Ronald Gamble), Gordon James (Death) and Hastings Lynn (Whittle) created their roles in the original stage production.

Thark was made at Elstree Studios.

Follow-up: Pot Luck.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,692

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