Jack of All Trades (1936 film)

Jack of All Trades is a 1936 British comedy film directed by Robert Stevenson and Jack Hulbert and starring Hulbert, Gina Malo and Robertson Hare.[1] It is based on the 1934 play Youth at the Helm. The film was made at Islington Studios, with sets designed by Alex Vetchinsky.[2]

Jack of All Trades
Directed byRobert Stevenson
Jack Hulbert
Written byHubert Griffith (play)
Paul Vulpius (play)
Jack Hulbert
Austin Melford
J. O. C. Orton
Produced byMichael Balcon
StarringJack Hulbert
Gina Malo
Robertson Hare
CinematographyCharles Van Enger
Edited byTerence Fisher
Music byBretton Byrd
Louis Levy
Production
company
Distributed byGaumont British Distributors
Release date
  • 30 December 1936 (1936-12-30)
Running time
76 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Plot

edit

Jack, out of work and responsible for an aged mother, takes a succession of jobs, bluffing his way through them all.[3]

Cast

edit

Critical reception

edit

Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a mildly negative review. After giving high praise to the board meeting scene in the first half of the film, and describing it as an "excellent sequence" of "pointed fooling", Greene comments that the remainder of the film "degenerates into nothing but [...] an awful eternal disembodied Cheeriness".[4]

References

edit
  1. ^ "Jack of All Trades (1936) - Trailers, Reviews, Synopsis, Showtimes and Cast". AllMovie. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
  2. ^ Wood p.86
  3. ^ "Jack of all Trades | BFI | BFI". Explore.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on 12 July 2012. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
  4. ^ Greene, Graham (6 March 1936). "Rose of the Rancho/Jack of all Trades". The Spectator. (reprinted in: Taylor, John Russell, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. pp. 56–57. ISBN 0192812866.)

Bibliography

edit
  • Low, Rachael. Filmmaking in 1930s Britain. George Allen & Unwin, 1985.
  • Wood, Linda. British Films, 1927-1939. British Film Institute, 1986.
edit