Crown v. Stevens

Crown v. Stevens is a 1936 British crime thriller film directed by Michael Powell, starring Beatrix Thomson and Patric Knowles and featuring Glennis Lorimer and Googie Withers. It was made as a "quota quickie",^[1] a film made to fulfill a legal requirement at the time that a certain percentage of films shown in British movie theatres be made in the U.K. by British personnel.

Crown v. Stevens
Directed by	Michael Powell
Written by	Brock Williams
Based on	Third Time Unlucky 1935 novel by Laurence Meynell
Produced by	Irving Asher
Starring	Beatrix Thomson Patric Knowles
Cinematography	Basil Emmott
Edited by	A. B. Bates
Production company	Warner Bros.
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	3 August 1936 (1936-08-03) (UK)
Running time	66 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Plot

Ex-dancer Doris Stevens kills a moneylender who is pressing her for settlement of her debt and threatening to tell her respectable businessman husband. Chris Jensen, who also owes money (for a ring he gave to his fiancee, who ran off with it) sees her there but does not report her. After she leaves, he burns pages from the moneylender's ledger which listed his debt. Later, Jensen finds out the woman is his employer's wife. He later accidentally intervenes when Doris attempts to murder her dull and stingy husband. When her husband is saved from dying, she admits her guilt and is taken away by the police.^[2]

Cast

• Beatrix Thomson as Doris Stevens, a former music hall dancer, now wife of Arthur Stevens
• Patric Knowles as Chris Jensen, an employee of Arthur Stevens
• Glennis Lorimer as Miss Molly Hobbes, an interior decorator
• Reginald Purdell as Alf, Stevens' foreman
• Allan Jeayes as Inspector Carter
• Frederick Piper as Arthur Stevens, a businessman
• Googie Withers as Ella Levine, Doris' friend, another former dancer
• Mabel Poulton as Mamie, a grifter who steals an unpaid-for ring given to her by Chris Jensem
• Billy Watts as Joe Andrews, a grifter, boyfriend of Mamie (uncredited)
• Davina Craig as Maggie, the Stevens' maid (uncredited)
• Morris Harvey as Maurice Bayleck, a moneylender (uncredited)
• Bernard Miles as Detective Wells (uncredited)

Production

Director Michael Powell said of the five "quota quickies" he directed for producer Irving Asher at Warner Bros.' Teddington Studios, that they were "a damn sight more honest and more entertaining" then other films he worked on at the time, "because they were not trying to be anything but what they were, and they were tailored from first-class scripts". These were cut down to 50 pages by the story department and handed over to the director. Powell called Crown vs. Stevens, his next-to-last film for Asher, a "tight little drama".^[3][4]

Critical reception

At the time of the film's release, Kinematograph Weekly called it a "Vivid portrayal of a young woman who commits murder and then tries to poison her husband, thereby involving his employee, a witness to the former crime. Plot is entirely suited to those who do not demand that a crime story should justify its existence by reaching too high an artistic level in theme, acting or presentation. Definitely unsuited to the family, the picture may nevertheless find a place in the average programme as a quota thriller";^[5] while more recently, TV Guide called it "Occasionally suspenseful," though opined "the plot is soggy and the actors all wet";^[6] whereas Dennis Schwartz noted "a very entertaining little melodrama," and concluded "The acting honors go to (Beatrix) Thomson. The stage actress was superb as the quintessential femme fatale, and easily steals this film from her capable co-stars."^[7]