The Passing of the Third Floor Back **** (1935, Conrad Veidt, Anna Lee, Rene Ray, Frank Cellier) – Classic Movie Review 12,921

The Passing of the Third Floor Back advertisement in The Film Daily, January – June 1929.

A Stranger works to redeem the inhabitants of a London boarding house, in Austrian director Berthold Viertel’s fascinating 1935 British drama film The Passing of the Third Floor Back, starring Conrad Veidt, Anna Lee, Rene Ray, and Frank Cellier.

The Passing of the Third Floor Back is a weird and rather wonderful Thirties Brit black and white fantasy drama film, in which an eerie Stranger (Conrad Veidt) arrives to take the third floor back room of a rooming house in Bloomsbury, London, and helps the dispirited other occupants against their wicked landlord and their internal demons.

Veidt gives a superlative performance as the Stranger who works to redeem the collection of small-minded inhabitants of the run-down boarding house that is the making of the movie.

But the cast is all good, none less than Sara Allgood as Mrs de Hooley. Rene Ray is appealing as the maid ‘Stasia, a rehabilitated juvenile delinquent, who is mistreated by the grasping Mrs Sharpe (Mary Clare), the owner of the house.

In a rare excursion outside her husband’s movies, the effective script is co-written (with Michael Hogan) by Alfred Hitchcock’s wife, Alma Reville, from a 1908 play by Jerome K Jerome, the author of Three Men in a Boat.

Viertel saw that there could be problems with transferring a play the confined location of a house to the screen but was interested in the idea of developing the characters’ psychological motivations.

Shooting was planned for six weeks at Gainsborough Studios, Shepherd’s Bush, London, using a limited number of sets, and with just the single scene of the seaside visit to Margate shot outside the studio.

Release date: 15 December 1935.

It is Viertel’s second British film after Little Friend (1934). He made just one more film, Rhodes of Africa (1936).

Poster for the 1935 British drama film The Passing of the Third Floor Back.

The cast are Conrad Veidt as The Stranger, Anna Lee as Vivian, Rene Ray as ‘Stasia, Frank Cellier as Wright, John Turnbull as Major Tomkins, Cathleen Nesbitt as Mrs. Tomkin, Ronald Ward as Chris Penny, Beatrix Lehmann as Miss Kite, Jack Livesey as Mr Larkcom, Sara Allgood as Mrs de Hooley, Mary Clare as Mrs Sharpe, Barbara Everest as Cook, Alexander Sarner as gramophone man, James Knight as police inspector, John Turnbull, and Philip Merivale.

The Passing of the Third Floor Back is directed by Berthold Viertel, runs 90 minutes, is made by Gaumont British Picture Corporation, is released by Gaumont British Distributors (UK) and Gaumont British Picture Corporation of America (US), is written by Michael Hogan and Alma Reville, based on a play and short story by Jerome K Jerome, is shot in black and white by Curt Courant, is produced by Ivor Montagu, and is scored by Hubert Bath and Louis Levy.

A previous 1918 silent film version was directed by Herbert Brenon.

Rene Ray (22 September 1911 – 28 August 1993).

Irene Lilian Brodrick, Countess of Midleton (née Creese, known as Rene Ray, 22 September 1911 – 28 August 1993).

Rene Ray starred in the London stage production, playing the central role nearly 450 times In 1951–52 before reprising her performance in the film version. Born Irene Lilian Creese, and becoming by marriage Irene Lilian Brodrick, Countess of Midleton, she signed her name Rène not René.

She starred in The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935), His Lordship (1936), The Green Cockatoo (1937), The Return of the Frog (1938) and They Made Me a Fugitive (1947) and Women of Twilight [Twilight Women] (1952).

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,921

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