The Crooked Billet (1929)

Directed by

Adrian Brunel

Genre

drama film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 18m

Rating

8.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An international spy looks for secret documents hidden in an old inn. The film was released as a part-talkie with some spoken dialogue and silent intertitles.

suspensefulold-fashionedmysteriousbrisksparsedialogue-drivenquiet

What happens

The Crooked Billet is a 1929 British sound part-talkie drama film directed by Adrian Brunel and starring Madeleine Carroll, Carlyle Blackwell and Miles Mander. It was released in both silent and sound versions, as its production came as the industry was shifting over. It was made by Gainsborough Pictures at their Islington Studios. The sound version features some sequences with audible dialogue. The rest of the film featured English intertitles with a synchronized musical score and sound effects. It was one of the first films to use RCA's synchronized sound system for dialogue. The plot has been summarized as: "An international spy searches for lost documents hidden in an old inn." It is listed on the British Film Institute's 75 Most Wanted list of lost films. The film surfaced in France in December 2021 but the BFI refused to pay the asking price, so the only known 16mm copy is owned by a French individual. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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