The Four Just Men (1939 film)

The Four Just Men
Original Australian trade ad
Directed by	Walter Forde
Written by	Angus MacPhail Sergei Nolbandov Roland Pertwee
Based on	The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace
Produced by	Michael Balcon
Starring	Hugh Sinclair Griffith Jones Francis L. Sullivan Frank Lawton Anna Lee
Cinematography	Ronald Neame
Edited by	Stephen Dalby Charles Saunders
Music by	Ernest Irving
Production company	Ealing Studios
Distributed by	ABFD (UK) Monogram Pictures (US)
Release date	7 June 1939 (1939-06-07)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The Four Just Men, also known as The Secret Four, is a 1939 British thriller film directed by Walter Forde and starring Hugh Sinclair, Griffith Jones, Edward Chapman and Frank Lawton. It is based on the 1905 novel The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace. There was a previous silent film version in 1921. This version was produced by Ealing Studios, with sets designed by Wilfred Shingleton.

The Four Just Men was re-released in 1944 with an updated ending featuring newsreel of Winston Churchill and the Allied war effort as a fulfilment of the ideals of the Four. The adviser on the House of Commons of the United Kingdom scenes was Aneurin Bevan.

Premise

The Four Men are British World War I veterans who unite to work in secret against enemies of the country. They aren't above a spot of murder or sabotage to achieve their ends, but they consider themselves true patriots.

Cast

• Hugh Sinclair – Humphrey Mansfield
• Griffith Jones – James Brodie
• Francis L. Sullivan – Leon Poiccard
• Frank Lawton – Terry
• Anna Lee – Ann Lodge
• Alan Napier – Sir Hamar Ryman M.P.
• Basil Sydney – Frank Snell
• Lydia Sherwood – Myra Hastings
• Edward Chapman- B. J. Burrell
• Athole Stewart – Police Commissioner
• George Merritt – Inspector Falmouth
• Garry Marsh – Bill Grant
• Ellaline Terriss – Lady Willoughby
• Roland Pertwee – Mr Hastings
• Eliot Makeham – Simmons
• Frederick Piper – Pickpocket
• Henrietta Watson – Mrs Truscott
• Jon Pertwee – Rally campaigner
• Liam Gaffney – Taxi driver
• James Knight – Policeman Outside Parliament
• Charles Paton – Platform Speaker
• Percy Walsh – Prison Governor
• Percy Parsons – American Broadcaster
• Bryan Herbert – Taxi driver
• Arthur Hambling – Constable Benham

Critical reception

The New York Times reviewer wrote, "Four Just Men, by Edgar Wallace, whatever it might have been, was probably not a work of literature, and therefore, on that charitable assumption, it is gently, rather than harshly, that one must deal with the British-made screen version, now on view at the Globe Theatre. Like all pictures seeping over from England nowadays, it is more than a little infected with the virus propagandistus, but, over and above that common-carrier failing, it is a model of sheer incredibility crossed with what (carrying out the charity idea) we might designate as espionage melodrama". According to a writer for the Radio Times decades later "it defiantly suggests that Britain could never fall under the sway of a dictator. But in all other respects it's a rollicking boys' own adventure, with some of the most fiendishly comic-book murders you will ever see... hugely entertaining sub-Hitchcockian antics".

Bibliography

• Low, Rachael. Filmmaking in 1930s Britain. George Allen & Unwin, 1985.
• Perry, George. Forever Ealing. Pavilion Books, 1994.
• Wood, Linda. British Films, 1927-1939. British Film Institute, 1986.

External links

• The Four Just Men at IMDb