The Story of Shirley Yorke ** (1948, Derek Farr, Dinah Sheridan, Margaretta Scott) – Classic Movie Review 12,767

The wildly melodramatic 1948 British thriller film The Story of Shirley Yorke stars Derek Farr, Dinah Sheridan, and Margaretta Scott. It is a fairly amusing curio based on an antique hit play.

Director Maclean Rogers’s wildly melodramatic 1948 British thriller film The Story of Shirley Yorke stars Derek Farr, Dinah Sheridan, and Margaretta Scott. It is a fairly amusing antique.

Posh nobleman Gerald Ryton (Farr) is suspected of killing his wife, millionairess Lady Camber (Beatrix Couper), but he points the finger of suspicion at his late wife’s nurse Shirley Yorke (Sheridan) who had given her a special new potion from her boss, the doctor Bruce Napier (John Robinson). Shirley is in real trouble when it is found out that she and Gerald were formerly lovers.

The Story of Shirley Yorke does not have a great deal going for it, except the decent acting from the good cast, the over-heated, far-fetched plotting and a lot of gleeful histrionics. However, that is enough to make it quite entertaining, even though it is a stagey, creaky, largely unconvincing crime thriller based on the antique hit play The Case of Lady Camber by Horace Annesley Vachell. Barbara Couper as Lady Camber’s cousin, the scheming Muriel Peach, is the standout turn, and Margaretta Scott impresses as the hospital matron. Less impressive, but most noteworthy are the appearances of Arthur Mullard as the Police Constable and Charles Hawtrey as Major Markham.

It is made at Nettlefold Studios, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England. It proved to be a surprise hit for British low-budget production company Butcher’s Film Service.

Release date: 4 July 1949 (UK).

British writer Horace Annesley Vachell’s play The Case of Lady Camber was a hit in London’s West End with a lengthy run at the Savoy Theatre in 1915. A previous 1932 film version called Lord Camber’s Ladies was directed by Benn W Levy and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. So it could have become a Hitchcock film. It’s the kind of material Hitchcock liked.

The cast are Derek Farr as Gerald Ryton, Dinah Sheridan as Shirley Yorke, Margaretta Scott as Alison Gwynne, John Robinson as Dr Bruce Napier, Barbara Couper as Muriel Peach, Beatrix Thomson as Lady Camber, Ian McLean as Dr Harris, Jack Raine as Stansfield Yorke, Lesley Osmond as Jennifer Ware, Valentine Dyall as Edward Holt, Eleanor Summerfield as Doris, Bruce Seton as Captain Sharp, Neville Brook as Professor Slufter, Vincent Holman as Bates, Olive Kirby as Irene, Shirley Quentin as Night Sister, Arthur Mullard as Police Constable, and Charles Hawtrey as Major Markham.

The Story of Shirley Yorke is directed by Maclean Rogers, runs 92 minutes, is made by Butcher’s Film Service, is released by Nettlefold Films, is written by A R Rawlinson and Kathleen Butler, based on the play The Case of Lady Camber by Horace Annesley Vachell, is shot in black and white by Geoffrey Faithfull, is produced by Ernest G Roy, and is scored by George Melachrino, with art direction by Charles Gilbert.

British screenwriter Kathleen Butler is an interesting character. She worked on the scripts of more than 40 films and as assistant director on four films. She mostly worked for Butcher’s Film Service.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,767

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