The Man Who Changed His Name ** (1934, Lyn Harding, Betty Stockfeld, Leslie Perrins) – Classic Movie Review 10,832

Director Henry Edwards’s 1934 quota quickie crime drama The Man Who Changed His Name stars Lyn Harding as wealthy, respectable husband Selby Clive, who poses as a notorious escaped Canadian fugitive from justice who murdered his last wife and changed his name in order to scare his young wife Nita (Betty Stockfeld) and stop her from running off with her lover Frank Ryan (Leslie Perrins). The two lovers plot to swindle the woman’s husband out of valuable Canadian mineral rights and run away together till they think they realise that the husband is trying to get rid of them after they rifle his desk and find a deed poll that shows he previously had the murderer’s name.

The Man Who Changed His Name is a fairly stolid and uninspiring version of Edgar Wallace’s interesting, playfully macabre 1928 mystery play, which for 77 performances at the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End. This vintage thriller is worth a look and is sometimes quite amusing, with two good star performances. But it is technically very flawed and a rather slow-moving, creaky, over-enunciated old British film that runs like not much more than a play-reading recital of a theatre production. But the teasing, complicated piece itself has a certain fascination that makes it worthy of an entirely better production. Hitchcock in Suspicion mode could have made a big deal out of it.

It is adapted for the screen by H Fowler Mear, with dialogue by Wallace and Mear.

It is shot at Twickenham Film Studios, St Margarets, Twickenham, Middlesex, England.

The art direction is by James A Carter.

Also in the cast are Ben Welden as Jerry Muller, Aubrey Mather as Sir Ralph Whitcombe, Stanley Vine as Lane and Richard Dolman as John Boscombe.

Stage actor Harding’s finest movie moments were in the 30s British Sherlock Holmes series as Dr Grimesby Rylott in The Speckled Band (1931) and as Professor Moriarty in The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935) and Silver Blaze (1937), and also as Mr Chips’s headmaster in Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939).

The Man Who Changed His Name was first made as a silent in 1928, directed by A V Bramble, and starring Stewart Rome as Selby Clive, Betty Faire and James Raglan. In 1933 Mario Camerini directed an Italian version Giallo starring Assia Noris.

The Man Who Changed His Name is directed by Henry Edwards, runs 80 minutes, is made by Real Art Productions and Twickenham, is released by Universal Pictures (1934) (UK) and DuWorld Pictures (1934) (US), is written by H Fowler Mear and Edgar Wallace, based on Edgar Wallace’s play, is shot by Sydney Blythe, is produced by Julius Hagen (presenter) and S W Smith, is scored by W L Trytel (musical director) and designed by James A Carter.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,832

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