Red Ensign [Strike!] *** (1934, Leslie Banks, Carol Goodner, Frank Vosper, Alfred Drayton) – Classic Movie Review 7956

Esteemed British film-maker Michael Powell’s 1934 Red Ensign [US title: Strike!] is an intriguing early low-budget (£12,000) quota quickie from him. Even so, it was Powell’s 12th film in four years, and, humble though it is, it is still perhaps his most memorable picture in the period from his first film as credited director in 1931 up to 1936.

Leslie Banks stars as Glasgow boat builder David Barr, manager and chief designer for the ship-building firm of Burns, McKinnon & Co, who is forced to use his own capital to finance a new design of cargo ship that can carry 25 per cent more cargo for the tonnage and use less fuel. But he is also forced into a deal with a wrong-doing competitor, hated rival ship builder Manning (Alfred Drayton), and eventually resorts to forging his company’s chairman’s signature for more finance.

Red Ensign is a conventional, soapy antique, that runs along very familiar, tried-and-tested lines, but it is still of very considerable interest as an early pot-boiling work by master director Powell, as well as for its cast, particularly Banks and Drayton.

Also in the cast are Carol Goodner as June MacKinnon, Frank Vosper as Lord Dean, Donald Calthrop as Macleod, Allan Jeayes, Henry Oscar, Campbell Gullan, Percy Parsons as Manning’s rabble-rouser Casey, Fewlass Llewllyn, with Henry Caine as Bassett, George Carney as publican Mr Lindsey, Jack Lambert as Police Inspector, John Laurie as Wages Accountant, Frederick Piper as Mr McWilliams and Jack Raine as Testing Official.

Red Ensign [Strike!] is directed by Michael Powell, runs 69 minutes, is made and released by Gaumont-British, is written by Jerome Jackson, Michael Powell and L du Garde Peach (dialogue), is shot in black and white by Leslie Rowson, and is produced by Michael Balcon (executive producer) and Jerome Jackson, with art direction by Alfred Junge.

Red Ensign is released on Region 1 DVD by MPI along with The Phantom Light (1935) and The Upturned Glass (1947).

With his first screen credit as director on the missing believed lost thriller Two Crowded Hours (1931), Powell directed 23 films from 1931 to 1936, including the critically well received Red Ensign (1934) and The Phantom Light (1935).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7956

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