The Calendar **** (1948, John McCallum, Sonia Holm, Greta Gynt, Raymond Lovell, Leslie Dwyer, Felix Aylmer, Noel Howlett, Charles Victor, Barry Jones, Diana Dors) – Classic Movie Review 12,668

The cheerful 1948 British Edgar Wallace racetrack mystery film The Calendar finds a titled-lady horse trainer (Sonia Holm) helping her penniless racehorse owner boss (John McCallum) provide evidence that he didn’t fix his horse to lose a race.

Gainsborough Pictures studios remake their old 1931 Edgar Wallace racetrack mystery film The Calendar, about a titled-lady horse trainer, Lady Mollie Panniford (Sonia Holm), who helps her boss, penniless racehorse owner Captain Garry Anson (John McCallum), to provide evidence that he didn’t fix his horse to lose a race as he agreed to do when depressed and drunk.

Wallace’s much more than fair pulp-fiction comedy thriller yarn is enjoyably and entertainingly retold here in director Arthur Crabtree’s 1948 British thriller film The Calendar, a cheap and cheerful production, with plenty of mystery and atmosphere, and a useful touch of humour from Leslie Dwyer as McCallum’s butler Sam Hillcott.

Also Greta Gynt commands attention as McCallum’s fiancée Wenda Panniford, the blonde gold-digger in the case, who jilts him once he loses his money at the races and marries Lord Willis Panniford, whose sister Mollie is training Garry’s horses.

And a very young Diana Dors is tenth billed as a maid called Hawkins. A film with Greta Gynt and Diana Dors: gasp!

It is packed with lots of interesting low-life trackside characters – and a few high-life ones: the British royal family appears courtesy of well-chosen footage of actual races, including the Epsom Derby. The Calendar is very good, old-style thriller fun.

The screenplay by Geoffrey Kerr is based on the 1929 play The Calendar and subsequent novel by Edgar Wallace.

It was shot in October 1947, mostly shot at Shepherd’s Bush studios in London, but with location filming at royal Ascot and Hurst Park. It is notable as the first time royal permission was given to film on the Ascot royal course.

Gainsborough’s head of production Sydney Box was the man who decided on the remake, and it turned out a moderate success.

The 1931 version starred Herbert Marshall.

The cast are Greta Gynt as Wenda Panniford, John McCallum as Captain Garry Anson, Raymond Lovell as Lord Willie Panniford, Sonia Holm as Lady Mollie Panniford, Leslie Dwyer as Sam Hillcott, Charles Victor as John Dory, Felix Aylmer as Lord Forlingham, Diana Dors as Hawkins, Cyril Chamberlain as Customs Official, Sydney King [Sidney King] as Tony, Noel Howlett as Lawyer, Barry Jones as Sir John Garth, Claude Bailey as Lord Inspond, Desmond Roberts as Rainby, Fred Payne as Andy Lynn, Fred Payne, Claude Bailey, Desmond Roberts, O B Clarence, and Constance Smith.

The Calendar is directed by Arthur Crabtree, runs 80 minutes, is made by Gainsborough Pictures, is released by General Film Distributors (UK) and Eagle Lion (US), is written by Geoffrey Kerr, based on the play and novel by Edgar Wallace, is shot in black and white by Reginald H Wyer and Cyril J Knowles, is produced by Antony Darnborough, and scored by Arthur Wilkinson.

It was released in London on 26 May 1948.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,668

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