Down River

Early British talkie (some scenes are "silent" and others have "synchronised sound" added) in which Charles Laughton plays a murderous half-Dutch, half-oriental skipper involved in dope-trafficking. A girl reporter (Jane Baxter) investigating his activities is discovered and held captive by Laughton but saved in the nick of time by her Customs Officer fiancée (Harold Huth). There are some hectic fights between Laughton's ship's crew and the police which are somewhat speeded up in the Keystone Cops manner. Laughton's make-up is suitably oriental in appearance though he's never too sure of his Dutch accent. A contemporary review wrote: "Thick-ear melodrama, excellent Thames-side background, good schoolboy stuff."

Charles Laughton as a dastardly Dutch-Chinese smuggler only gradually insinuates himself into this - the last of his British potboilers before Hollywood beckoned - but his new-found stature is attested to by his special billing in the opening credits.

The film is enlivened by actual footage of motor boats filmed on the Thames - including a speedboat chase shot night-for-night - while Andrew Mazzei has designed an enormous nightclub set in which Helen Howell performs an exotic dance in Oriental-style bobbed hair and a slinky unitard. Director Peter Godfrey shows off the set by dollying his camera back and fourth to make sure we get a good look at it; although for most of the rest of the film inspiration fails him and much of the action looks as if we're seeing it from the back of the stalls.

Jane Baxter is an attractive and feisty heroine, while Laughton - with his slicked-back hair, cherubic, bizarrely made up face, Chinese smocks and Buddha-like demeanour - although given relatively little dialogue, plainly doesn't need it to dominate the proceedings.