Dundee Courier (19/Feb/1935) - British Child Star Scores

Details

• article: British Child Star Scores
• newspaper: Dundee Courier (19/Feb/1935)
• keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Edna Best, Leslie Banks, Nova Pilbeam, Peter Lorre, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Article

BRITISH CHILD STAR SCORES.

A FIRST-RATE British film is shown at the King's Theatre this week. "The Man Who Knew Too Much" brings to the screen again that wonderful child actress, Nova Pilbeam, who scored a triumph in her first film, "Little Friend."

The picture, skilfully directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is pure melodrama, but although the situations are sometimes improbable, it keeps one enthralled from start to finish.

Nova Pilbeam, to whom a larger share of the picture might have been given, is the only child of the Lawrences, an English couple, who accidentally discover a plot to assassinate a foreign politician visiting London. The instigators of the plot kidnap the child, and demand the silence of her parents as the price of her safety.

The sinister atmosphere and tense situations are ably contrived, and the climax has a parallel in history in the famous siege

of Sidney Street. The police, at last on the track of the criminals, storm the house in Wapping where the child and her father are held prisoners.

The parts of Edna Best, Leslie Banks, and Nova Pilbeam as the Lawrence family are finely acted, and there is real subtlety in Peter Lorre's portrayal of the anarchist leader.