Action for Slander

Clive Brook is going through a rough patch. His wife, Ann Todd, is leaving him because he has been having an affair with a fellow officer's wife. He is at a shooting party and, playing poker in the evening, he picks up a great hand and bets to the tune of five hundred pounds. The other player who has stayed in, whose wife Brook is having an affair with accuses him of cheating. His friends advise him not to bring suit for slander, but a year later, the accusation has gotten out. At this point, Miss Todd returns and talks him into bringing suit at last.

It's the sort of society drama that Alexander Korda was producing at this point. It has a great cast, including Francis L. Sullivan and Felix Aylmer as the opposing barristers. There are some good lines offered under the direction of Tim Whelan and Clive Brook is a world-class glarer, the equal of Anita Garvin; Miss Todd plays her usual long-suffering English rose. It's a very good movie of its type, yet the inherent triviality and (to this American) the emphasis on the importance of society's opinion and the insanity of British libel law make it seem like a storm in a teacup.