The Shop at Sly Corner *** (1947, Oskar Homolka, Derek Farr, Muriel Pavlow, Kenneth Griffith) – Classic Movie Review 8482

Oskar Homolka has a field day playing Desius Heiss, an antique dealer with a secret criminal past, who is ready to kill to save his beautiful violin-playing daughter, Margaret (Muriel Pavlow), in director George King’s creakily theatrical though amusing 1947 black and white noir thriller The Shop at Sly Corner [Code of Scotland Yard]. The story is quite fun but it is the cast that makes The Shop at Sly Corner a little bit special.

Griffith is the show’s other hit turn as Heiss’s creepy blackmailing shop assistant Archie Fellows, who has discovered his secret. But the whole cast is enjoyable right down to an uncredited Ms Diana Dors as ‘Mildred’ in her first film.

Having acted in public productions at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where she was the college’s youngest ever student at 14, Dors was cast in a walk-on role that developed into a speaking part. Her pay was £8 a day for three days. She recalled: ‘They asked me to change my name. I suppose they were afraid that if my real name Diana Fluck was in lights and one of the lights blew…’ She changed her contractual surname to Dors, her maternal grandmother’s maiden name.

Also in the cast are Derek Farr, Manning Whiley, Irene Handl, Kathleen Harrison, Garry Marsh and Johnnie Schofield, Katie Johnson, Vi Kaley, David Keir, James Knight and Eliot Makeham.

Katherine Strueby’s screenplay is based on Edward Percy’s London stage production triumph, with Griffith in the same role.

The Shop at Sly Corner [Code of Scotland Yard] is directed by George King, runs 92 minutes, is made by Pennant Pictures, is released by British Lion Film Corporation (1947) (UK) and Republic Pictures (1948) (US), is written by Katherine Strueby, with additional dialogue by Reginald Long, based on Edward Percy’s play, is shot by Hone Glendinning, is produced by George King and is scored by George Melachrino, with Art Direction by Bernard Robinson.

It was filmed at Worton Hall Studios, Isleworth, Middlesex, England.

There was also a TV version of the play from the British Broadcasting Corporation, broadcast on 21 July 1946, filmed at St Martin’s Theatre, West Street, London, and also featuring Griffith.

Muriel Pavlow died on 19 January 2019.

Pavlow met her future husband actor Derek Farr while filming. They were married from 7 January 1947 till his death on 22 March 1986.

RIP Muriel Pavlow, who died on 19 January 2019, aged 97.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8482

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