Herbert Mundin - The Film Years (1931 - 1933)
Not all actors were able to make the transition but Herbert had a good screen voice to match his flexible facial features. Years of working the music halls and theatres of England, USA and Australia had led to him developing a good understanding of the use of speech to engage audiences.
Herbert Mundin's first films were the so-called 'quota quickies', made to fulfil the production requirements of the 1927 Cinematograph Films Act. The quota comedies often employed music hall acts, something that documentary pioneer John Grierson approvingly referred to as following a "vulgar tradition".
In Quota Quickies, a history of the birth of the British 'B' film for the British Film Institute (2007), Steve Chibnall refers to the legacies of the music hall on comedic cinema:
When they were not employing the dubious talents of graduates of the Henry Kendall school of silly asses, they often drew on the talents of music-hall performers who usually went through their 'business' with few cinematic refinements. One of the more accomplished was the rubber-faced Lancashire comic Herbert Mundin.
Herbert Mundin (far left) as Peter Bootle in the haunted house comedy Immediate Possession
In Ashes, Herbert's first film produced by Michael Balcon in London, he played the role of a cricketer. According to Mundin's entry in 'Who Was Who in the Theatre 1912-1976', (published 1978), cricket was one of his passions, along with 'Association Football'. In this comedy short, a slow-moving cricket match takes sixty years to be completed. Herbert's second film was Enter the Queen which was released in November 1930 and produced for Fox by Harry Cohen's Starcraft company. It lasted just forty-two minutes and it was Herbert's first script by Brock Williams, who wrote for over fifty productions during the 1930s.
Despite being a modest production, the film was distributed in South Africa and Australia, as was The Wrong Mr. Perkins (pictured left), in which Herbert played the eponymous Jimmy Perkins. The film lasted just 38 minutes and was directed by Arthur Varney and written again by Brock Williams.
He also scripted We Dine at Seven and Peace and Quiet, which were made back-to-back at Twickenham in early 1931. The former was a comedy for George Smith Productions in which Herbert as a newlywed becomes entangled with another man's wife. Released by Fox in April 1931, it lasted just 44 minutes. In Peace and Quiet (42'), Herbert Mundin played Percy Wilberforce, the unlikely heir to a peerage, who manages to thwart a bunch of robbers who break into his stately home.
These productions were deliberately given a short running time, so that exhibitors could screen a programme of two films, twice a night on six evenings a week. These were the depression years and cinema-goers expected value for money for their escapist entertainment.
Herbert Mundin's last film in England was East Lynne on the Western Front, which was directed by George Pearson for the Gaumont British Picture Corporation. He played Bob Cox, who as a bored soldier in 1915 who was waiting for action on the French Western Front, produces a burlesque version of the play 'East Lynne'. At eighty-five minutes duration, this appears to have been his first full-length feature. Despite this film being made for Gaumont instead of the usual Fox, it was the latter studio who offered him a Hollywood contract. So on May 16th 1931, Herbert and his wife Kathleen Ann and her daughter Nona, returned to the States on the Lancastria. It seems that he only came back to England on one more occasion prior to his death.
Herbert was quite a big name in England by the time he began at Twickenham and the films he made in London were largely based around him. However, in the USA he was unknown and in his first Hollywood production, Silent Witness, he wasn't even given a credit. He played Henry Hammer in a court drama that starred Lionel Atwill as a lawyer who defends his own son.
It should be remembered that many early 1930s films left much to be desired. They tended to be static and stilted in performance due to immobility of the microphone. Herbert's movie sound pioneer relative, George Groves, discusses the advances in production techniques here and is pictured with Béla Lugosi in 1930. As sound film technology improved, so did production practice and as actors developed freedom of movement, so the quality of films improved.
Herbert plays Albert Miggles, a drunken friend and servant of Chandu who sees himself in miniature each time he takes a drink. The film boasts quite high production values for its time, with some trick photography and special effects. Herbert added a comedic touch to a film that was intended as a romantic thriller. It was a wonderful vehicle for Mundin who was able to demonstrate his wide range of funny facial expressions while being suspended in mid-air, hallucinating miniature doubles and being chased by Egyptian mummies!
There were four more films in 1932 in which Herbert played a role, although they were not always substantial ones. In the Paramount film Love Me Tonight starring Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and Myrna Loy that was released in August, he had a small role as a groom. In The Painted Woman starring Spencer Tracy, which was also released in August, Herbert played Georgie a mess boy. The William Powell vehicle, One Way Passage, released in October and made by Warners, featured Herbert somewhat briefly as a steward.
Herbert's first feature of 1933 was Cavalcade, based on Noël Coward's successful Drury Lane play. This American production of a very English story intrigued the British press who carefully followed its making. On August 31st, 1932, the Times announced that Clive Brook, Una O'Connor, Herbert Mundin and Frank Lawton were among the English artists who'd been selected to appear in the film version.
On October 12th, they questioned whether the English atmosphere of Coward's play could be captured under the "glaring sun and eternal blue skies" of California. However, their 'special correspondent' who visited the Fox lot praised the meticulous attention to detail which was going into the film. He did observe that the producer's chief anxiety was whether the thousands of American extras in the Trafalgar Square Armistice celebrations scene, would obey the director's instruction to rid themselves of their chewing gum when the shooting began!
On November 10th, the Times reported that production under director Frank Lloyd was proceeding "swiftly" and many important scenes had already been shot. By January 5th, 1933, Cavalcade was premiered in New York and the London newspaper loved it:
...the scenes below stairs were said by persons who have seen both play and film to have been better done in the film, with Mr. Herbert Mundin and Miss Una O'Connor admirably portraying Alfred Bridges and Allen.
Herbert Mundin with Una O'Connor in Cavalcade as Alfred and Ellen Bridges
Other notable films released in 1933 featuring 'Tommy', as Herbert's family and friends called him, were Pleasure Cruise, It's Great To Be Alive, Adorable, From Arizona to Broadway and Hoop-La.
In Pleasure Cruise, Herbert was cast as Henry and once again played against Una O'Connor, who as Mrs. Signus, was a flirtatious passenger on a cruise ship. Roland Young was cast as the husband and Genevieve Tobin as the possibly unfaithful wife. It was released in April 1933, just months before the Hays production code began to be enforced and it did have some frank and sexual moments. They're somewhat tame by today's moral standards, but certainly not then.
Herbert Mundin with Una O'Connor in 'Pleasure Cruise' (left) and in 'From Arizona to Broadway' (right)
It's Great to Be Alive was released in July 1933 in the United States and was a rather surreal production that crossed the comedy, sci-fi and musical genres. The Fox studio promotional posters invited screen-goers to:
Let your imagination run wild and you'll get an idea of the gaiety, the spiciness, the tunes and the laughs that you'll find in Fox Film's 'It's Great To Be Alive'!
During the Depression years, a number of films offered escapist fare that included bizarre scenes and Chandu the Magician, certainly had some unusual moments! Now Herbert played Brooks in a film starring Raul Roulien as an aviator who crash lands on a South Pacific island and when he returns home he discovers that a disease has made every other man sterile.Having previously appeared with Joan Bennett in The Trial of Vivienne Ware, Herbert played alongside her again as Kingfish Miller in From Arizona to Broadway, a lighthearted production about conmen conning other con artists.
Herbert Mundin with Clara Bow in Hoop-La (1933) - this was Clara's last film before she went into retirement
By the end of 1933, Herbert had made appearances in nineteen Hollywood films in only two years. His notices had all been good and he'd firmly established himself as a character actor in the movie capital of the world.
Next Part: The Film Years (1934 - 1935)
Written and researched by Stephen Wainwright with additional research by Barry Fletcher
and Derek Mundin and contributions from Peter Metcalfe, Jill McManus and Philip G. Cerny
and Derek Mundin and contributions from Peter Metcalfe, Jill McManus and Philip G. Cerny