FINE BRITISH FILM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20274, 7 April 1934, Page 31 (Supplement)

FINE BRITISH FILM.

Great Cast Enacts " Friday,

the Thirteenth.”

England’s leading director, Victor Saville, who made “ The Good Companions ” and “ I Was a Spy,” has done another fine piece of work with “ Friday the 13th,” the Gainsborough film which opened at the Regent Theatre to-day. It is a very human and intensely interesting picture* marked by brilliant acting by some of Eng!and,*s leading players. “ Friday the 13th ” imitates the technique of that very successful stage play, “ Dinner at Eight,” in that the audience follows a handful of widely differing characters. through various episodes and adventures, which finally bring them to a central meeting point. They all reach the climax of their lives in a bus just prior to a crash in which two of them are killed and most of the others injured. There is rich humour, strong drama and clever characterisation in each of the six separate facets of the film. Jessie Matthews is Millie, the chorus-girl, Edmund Gwenn is Wakefield and Max Miller (who contributed a few unforgettable moments to “The Good Companions ” with his portrayal of the music agent) gives a longer performance in a similar vein as Joe Then there are Robertson Hare as Mr Lightfoot, Sonnie Hale as the bus conductor, Eliot Makeham as the tragic little clerk, and Emlyn Williams as Blake, the “ gentlemanly ” blackmailer. Box plans at the D.I.C.