Murder at Greystone Grange (1934)

D. John Harris
B&W


What’s that you say? There’s a new film opening down The Ritzy? A murder mystery at an English country house? Ooh, intriguing. Very Agatha Christie. Oh, this isn’t her? Never mind, it’s a scenario which always offers a lot of promise. Who’s in it? Okay Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Madeleine Carroll, Ralph Richardson, Edith Evans, Peter Lorre and Peggy Ashcroft. Hmm, Madeleine Carroll I know as she’s your proper film star, but as for the rest I’ve heard the names – I’m not much of a theatre goer, I’m afraid – and that good things are expected. Promising young actors then. And Edith Evans who isn’t actually that young. Okay, I’m sold. Let’s go!


If ever there was a film where the over-talented cast tries valiantly to get above underwhelming material, it’s ‘Murder at Greystone Grange’. Gielgud is a wealthy industrialist who invites various associates – including: his supposedly demure sister Ashcroft; socialite Carroll; penniless duchess Evans; mysterious European investor Lorre; and man about town/mystery novelist Olivier – to a dinner party at his fantastic old manor house, Greystone Grange. But at the stroke of midnight the lights go out and the next anyone sees is Gielgud’s lifeless body sprawled on the floor.


The script is credited to a Deidre Evans, with direction by John Harris. These are two individuals whose work I confess I don’t know, but whose names just scream out pedestrian and mediocre. Can we really expect great things from a collaboration between Harris and Evans? Clearly not. It’s often difficult to physically and unmistakably see a lack of something, but inspiration here is painfully and utterly missing. So, what makes this creaking, aged curio interesting is watching that talented cast try their absolute hardest to breathe life into material so limp it almost feels in need of a mercy killing itself.


Olivier has moments to shine as the callow young lead, Gielgud is dominant as the aged industrialist, Richardson is shifty as the butler and one only needs to point the camera at Lorre to make him a sinister European. There are good things in the performances. But there is also a director with absolutely zero sense of control. In comparison to Gielgud and Ashcroft’s underplaying, both Lorre and Olivier wildly overact. Olivier mostly gives into his tendency to attack any scenery he sees as if he is peckish Neolithic man and it’s a tasty slab of woolly mammoth; while Lorre is all eye popping and dramatic gestures galore. His pronunciation of “telephonist” is definitely worth seeking out however, making it sound like one of the most exotic substances known to man.


What truly lingers from the film though is Carroll, who brings the charm and understanding of a proper film star. It’s a genuine movie performance and another reason why she should be better remembered today.