Romilly Lunge Stage & Film Actor 1904 - 1994

Musical about a singer at a ‘road house’ who becomes a stage star much to the discomfort of her husband and family.
Their family life is thrown into further turmoil when their daughter is falsely accused of killing a ne’er-do-well.
The film is based on the 1932 play Road House by Walter C. Hackett.
It was made by British Gaumont at the Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush, with shooting beginning in July 1934.
The film's art direction is by Alfred Junge.
British Gaumont's contract director Alfred Hitchcock was originally reported to be making the film, but instead directed The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Cast of Actors
Violet Loraine as Belle Larrimore
Gordon Harker as Sam Pritchard
Aileen Marson as Kitty Hamble
Emlyn Williams as Chester
Hartley Power as Dick D'Arcy
Anne Grey as Lady Chettwinde
Stanley Holloway as Donovan
Marie Lohr as Lady Hamble
Edwin Styles as Archie Hamble
Romilly Lunge as Hugh Romilly

NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE ON BRITISH TV
Traitor Spy - Romilly Lunge, Bruce Cabot, Marta Labarr, Tamara Desni 1939

Walter Summers’ Traitor Spy [sometimes referred to as The Torso Murder Mystery] is based on a T.C.H. Jacobs novel of the same name. The story follows Detective Inspector William Bernard [Edward Lexy playing one of Jacobs' most popular characters] and Beverley Blake [Romilly Lunge] – a secret agent masquerading as an intrepid newspaper journalist – as the pair reluctantly work together to solve a murder case. Bruce Cabot [The Quiet American 1958] plays Carl Beyersdorf alias Ted Healy: the spy in question trying to extort money out of the British and the Nazis – whoever offers the highest price – whilst simultaneously faking his own death in order to escape a prison sentence. It’s down to Bernard and Blake to uncover the true identity of the body and bring the American ne’er do well to justice.

Given this film’s relative obscurity you’d be forgiven for assuming, especially if you’ve never heard of Walter Summers, that this is just another paint by numbers war flick. Admittedly, this is the last film Summers directed [the last film he worked on was 1941's Queer Cargo for which he co-wrote the screenplay] and Summers’ later work is not considered his best. This said, it is my opinion that Summers is a somewhat overlooked figure by cinema aficionados, even the BFI bod who programmed this film in at the Southbank couldn’t bring himself to describe Summers as an ‘unappreciated auteur’, and there is still a lot to take away from his final directorial piece.

The relationship between Lunge and Lexy is smart and good-humoured, Marta Labarr is deliciously sultry as Cabot’s downtrodden but loyal wife and the film itself comes to an unexpectedly dramatic climax [I won't ruin the small details but involves house on fire and some fairly shocking farewells] that stays with the viewer long after the credits roll. The script is also sharp, witty and knowing with lines such as “I learnt to distrust a pretty face 25 years ago and I’ve never had cause to regret it.” Throw in an absurdly over the top and yet undeniably amusing turn from Davina Craig as the Healy’s moon-eyed maid: Mabel and you’re left with a high quality feature with little slack.

My first experience of Walter Summers’ directing was earlier this year at the British Silent Film Festival. There I watched A Couple of Down and Outs, a post-World War One film about a man and his war horse. How has a man like Walter Summers, who has successfully transitioned from silent film to sound and created topical, and yet beautiful, pictures relating to two World Wars been so neglected? His work is polished for the era in which it was created. His scripts and direction are emotionally articulate, sensitively handled and, in many ways, ahead of their time.

With this particular film it is arguably a matter of timing and tone. Traitor Spy is often considered Britain’s answer to Confessions of a Nazi Spy which was a big hit for Warner Brothers in the same year. Confessions was released just before the outbreak of war in May of 1939, however, and Traitor Spy wasn’t released until a year later – by this time Summers’ take on treachery would probably have felt somewhat old hat and, unfortunately, it did not share the same success. Furthermore, this film is much more about the solving of the mystery than any Nazi-beating, propagandist message perhaps making it an odd fit for war-time programming. Whatever the reasons Summers’ films do deserve your attention if the opportunity arises; his attention to detail and knack for delivering heart breaking yarns make him an important name in early cinema that picture goers and scholars alike should revisit.

The part of the Bideford Marine Engineering Company was played by John I. Thornycroft & Company Ltd, a geographically unsound substitution since Bideford is in Devon and Thorneycrofts was based on the Solent, more than half the width of England away. Early in the movie there’s a scene of the antisubmarine boat being tested, and the water it’s being tested on looks like the Solent. Ho hum.

Cast.
Bruce Cabot - Ted Healey
Marta Labarr - Freyda Healey
Tamara Desni - Marie Dufreyene
Romilly Lunge - Beverley Blake
Edward Lexy - Inspector Barnard
Cyril Smith - Sergeant Trotter
Percy Walsh - Lemnel
Eve Lynd - Florrie McGowan
Alexander Field - Yorky Meane
Hilary Pritchard - Toni Vencini
Davina Craig - Mabel
Vincent Holman - Hawkeye
Anthony Shaw - Commander Anderson
Peter Gawthorne - Commissioner
Sic Jukes - Hubert Kessler
Frederick Valk - German Ambassador
Marilyn Monroe - Underage Prostitute (often uncredited)

Romilly Lunge and Lesley Banks with Lilli Palmer in the 1940 film The Door With Seven Locks...

The Door with Seven Locks is a 1940 black-and-white British film, created and released shortly after the British Board of Film Censors lifted its mid-1930s ban on supernatural-themed and horror genre films.
It was based on the novel The Door with Seven Locks by Edgar Wallace.

Released in the United States by Monogram Pictures under the title Chamber of Horrors, it was the second Wallace film adaptation to arrive in the United States.
The first being The Dark Eyes of London (called The Human Monster in the US) starring Béla Lugosi which had been released the year before.

Plot...
A wealthy lord dies and is entombed with a valuable deposit of jewels.
Seven keys are required to unlock the tomb and get hold of the treasure.
A series of mysterious events cause the keys to be scattered and when trying to unravel the circumstances, the heiress of the fortune and her companion investigators become entangled in a web of fraud, deceit, torture and murder.

Cast...
Leslie Banks as Dr. Manetta
Lilli Palmer as June Lansdowne
Romilly Lunge as Dick Martin
Gina Malo as Glenda Baker
David Horne as Edward Havelock
Richard Bird as Inspector Seed
Cathleen Nesbitt as Ann Cody
JH Roberts as Luis Silva
Aubrey Mallalieu as Lord Charles Francis Selford
Harry Hutchinson as Bevan Cody
Ross Landon as John Selford
Phil Ray as Tom Cawler
Robert Montgomery as Craig the Butler