Hyde Park Corner (1935)

The problem, for me anyway, with a lot of these farces is that they really belong in a theatrical setting. Putting them onto film just robbed them of much of their inane silliness. Believe it or not, the productions on screen are just too good for the writing. Even here with accomplished performers Binnie Hale and Gordon Harker, the pace is embarrassing, lacklustre and just falls flat on it's face. It's based on a rather simple play which tells of an ongoing feud between the "Gannett" and the "Cheatle" families that results in the periodic re-staging of a duel in an elegant Hyde Park Corner home in London. That's all pretty incidental to the two stars delivering - alongside Gibb McLaughlin and Eric Portman - a relentless dialogue of what passed for pithy, but is really a rather unfunny set of poorly staged set-piece comedy sketches with punchlines you can see from space. The two at the top of the bill do work well together, and certainly try hard to make this watchable but they've nowhere near enough of substance to work with to rescue it from the comedy doldrums.