Lord Camber's Ladies (1932) Online

'Lord Camber's Ladies' is notable as the only film ever produced by Alfred Hitchcock which he did not also direct. There are no end of stories about Hitchcock's ongoing battles with the various producers of his own films, most notably David O Selznick. Hitchcock absolutely refused to allow his producers any creative input into his films: whenever a producer came onto the set of a Hitchcock movie, the camera would mysteriously have a breakdown, or some other instantaneous disaster would occur, preventing any footage from being shot until the producer took the hint and left. I'm extremely curious to know anything about Hitchcock's behaviour during the production schedule of 'Lord Camber's Ladies': did he give director Benn Levy a free hand to direct this movie with no interference? Or did Hitchcock -- as controller of the purse-strings -- inflict upon Levy the same scrutiny which Hitchcock resented from Selznick and other producers? Hitchcock does not make his customary walk-on appearance in 'Lord Camber's Ladies', but at this early point in his career (1932) the Hitchcock cameo was not the entrenched tradition it would later become.

Gertrude Lawrence -- a major stage star with very few film roles -- gives a standout performance in a role that might have been tailor-made for her. Lady Camber, now married to a peer, is a former star of the variety halls, a famed beauty whose stage turn showcased her talents for mimicry. Now her beauty has faded, and she's in a loveless marriage to Lord Camber, a philanderer. Lady Camber has heart trouble, and she now requires a full-time nurse attendant, under the guidance of Dr Harley Napier. I found that forename somewhat contrived: *Harley* Street is where London's most prestigious physicians have their surgeries, so it seemed needlessly gimmicky that the medico in this movie should be cried Harley.

Lady Camber's maid was her dresser in her music-hall days. They were formerly devoted to each other, but now Lady Camber's affections have transferred to her nurse. Spitefully, the maid tells her that the nurse is Lord Camber's latest lover. Lady Camber scoffs at this. But later, she rings her husband and, using her talents for mimicry down the 'phone line, pretends to be the nurse. Lord Camber is fooled entirely, and he responds with a statement that incriminates himself and the supposedly loyal nurse. Lady Camber faints, lapses into a coma, then soon dies.

Is it possible that she was murdered? And if so, by whom? At this point, the movie veers onto science-fiction's turf. It turns out that Dr Napier has recently isolated talcin, a deadly poison that causes precisely the symptoms which Lady Camber exhibited just before she died. With gobsmacking convenience, talcin is odourless, colourless, tasteless (no comment) and utterly undetectable at post-mortem. (I find this unbelievable: any compound that's toxic enough to kill someone will surely traumatise the victim's body sufficiently for a pathologist to detect its presence.) Gertrude Lawrence and Benita Hume give excellent performances here, and I was equally impressed with Nigel Bruce's portrayal of the unsympathetic Lord Camber. Bruce is best known for portraying bumbling asses, even playing Dr Watson in that mode. Here he gives a very different performance, and is entirely believable.

I was also impressed with Gerald du Maurier's portrayal of Dr Napier. Here, a few comments are in order. Gerald du Maurier had a long distinguished stage career: he was the first actor to play Captain Hook in 'Peter Pan'. His father George du Maurier was a distinguished novelist, illustrator and cartoonist (creator of Svengali, Trilby and Peter Ibbetson), and Gerald's daughter Dame Daphne du Maurier was a best-selling novelist. As devotees of Hitchcock will know, three of his films -- 'Jamaica Inn', 'Rebecca' and 'The Birds' -- are based on works by Daphne du Maurier, whereas no other author's work served as the basis for more than one of Hitchcock's films.

A couple of decades ago, when I spotted a copy of Daphne du Maurier's autobiography in a bookstall in the Charing Cross Road, I bought it for the specific reason of finding out what Dame Daphne had to say about Sir Alfred Hitchcock. I was astonished that her long memoir doesn't mention him at *all*. Several years later, I learnt the reason. While 'Lord Camber's Ladies' was in production, Hitchcock played a very cruel joke on Gerald du Maurier. He invited du Maurier to a costume party, urging du Maurier to wear the most ridiculous outfit he could assemble. When du Maurier arrived at Hitchcock's London residence -- wearing a red nose, mutton-chop whiskers, a kilt, spats, and other accoutrements -- he discovered that it was a formal dinner party, with everyone else in evening dress. Apparently, decades afterwards, Daphne du Maurier still despised Hitchcock for having humiliated her father. Yet that never prevented her from selling him the film rights to two of her novels and her story 'The Birds'.

I'll rate 'Lord Camber's Ladies' 8 out of 10.

This is a film produced by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Gertrude Lawrence, and it was nothing like I expected. Lawrence stars as a music hall star who marries Lord Camber (Nigel Bruce) and retires from the stage. Time passes and Lady Camber is admitted to a hospital where Gerald du Maurier (who gets first billing) is a kindly doctor. His nurse and lab assistant is Janet King (Benita Hume), a former florist and girl friend of Lord Camber. With Lady Camber flat on her back, it seems Camber and nursie start up again where they left off. Now if only Lady Camber were not in the way. Another doctor by chance catches the nurse washing out and refilling a bottle of poison and replacing it in the poison cabinet. Soon thereafter Lady Camber keels over. But the doctor snitches and du Maurier accuses the nurse of murder. In a typical Hitchcock ploy (and he had nothing to do with the writing and/or directing of this film), what the first doctor has witnessed was an action (replacing the bottle of poison) taken out of context. So who killed Lady Camber? The four principles are all very good, and Lawrence gets to sing a song in the opening, which is likely as close to her real stage performing style as we'll ever get to see. Her breezy bravado is in full evidence.

Too bad there is not a good quality copy of this film floating around.

Gertrude Lawrence made all too few appearances on film despite her overwhelming stage stardom, and far too few comedies where she excelled (rather like America's great Tallulah Bankhead, perhaps best remembered today in one of her last roles, Alfred Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT). This was Lawrence's one time working with Hitchcock, but not as director, merely as producer. Lawrence, master of the light comedy and musical (the very young may know her thanks to cast albums as the original "Mrs. Anna" in Rodgers & Hammerstein's KING AND I at the end of her life), may best be remembered on film for her serious dramatic performance in Tennessee Williams' GLASS MENAGERIE.

The film, not formally released on home video, is well worth tracking down for her lighter performance as the doomed ex-vaudevillian wife of a Lord as well as those of top billed Gerald Du Maurier as her doctor, Benita Hume as the nurse accused of her murder and Nigel Bruce as her wayward husband. Possibly even more worth seeking out is the film made four years later which showed Lawrence at her glamorous best as the wife of an actor sharing the London stage with her as the title character and Desdimona in Shakespeare's Othello (MEN ARE NOT GODS also starring top billed Miriam Hopkins). Lawrence gets to sing in both films.

One can only hope that *someone* finds a print of the next film Lawrence made after this one - 1933's light comedy NO FUNNY BUSINESS - which co-starred a very young Laurence Olivier and Jill Esmond who had co-starred with Lawrence and Noel Coward two years earlier in Coward's PRIVATE LIVES in both London and New York! Wouldn't that be something to see!!

LORD CAMBER'S LADIES is drawn from H.A. Vachelli's 1915 London hit THE CASE OF LADY CAMBER which starred Mary Bolard in the disappointing 1917 Broadway run (48perf. at the Lyceum, 26March-19May), and that extra level of background may peak mystery fans' interest - seeing in this early depression era filming what a hit murder mystery looked like at the height of WWI. This is something of a must for serious theatre aficionados.