The Hundred Pound Window *** (1944, Anne Crawford, David Farrar, Frederick Leister, Mary Clare, Richard Attenborough) – Classic Movie Review 13,520

The engaging 1944 British comedy crime film The Hundred Pound Window stars Anne Crawford, David Farrar, Frederick Leister, Mary Clare, and Richard Attenborough. It was carelessly lost but happily is now found.

Director Brian Desmond Hurst’s engaging 1944 British comedy crime film The Hundred Pound Window stars Anne Crawford, David Farrar, Frederick Leister, Mary Clare, and Richard Attenborough. The film had vanished for nearly 70 years and was presumed lost.

Frederick Leister plays Ernest Draper, an accountant has to take a second job working at the betting window at a racetrack, where he soon becomes mixed up with a gang of criminals after his employer decides to open a window for hundred-pound bets.

For many years this was on list of Britain’s hundred missing movies most wanted by the British Film Institute, who say 80 per cent of silent movies and one in three films from the prolific 1930s are unaccounted for.

But then a 16mm print was found, restored and screened at the National Film Theatre on 21 August 2010 as part of the BFI’s Lost and Found season.

It is a slight, but charming and nicely acted film about a clerk bribed to cheat at the races, of much interest for the star appearance of character actor Frederick Leister (1885-1970) and for an early sizeable role for a 20-year-old Richard Attenborough as his son Tommy, plus Mary Clare as his wife, Anne Crawford as his daughter, and David Farrar as her fiance.

It was shot at Teddington Studios, the home of Warner Bros’ British subsidiary. When Warners many years ago offered their films to the National Film Archive they were rejected, apparently by the head of the BFI, and they were trashed. This one vanished for nearly 70 years until a copy came from a film collector who had a battered 16mm print with a blurry soundtrack at home.

The cast are Frederick Leister, Mary Clare, Anne Crawford, Richard Attenborough, David Farrar, Niall MacGinnis. David Hutcheson, Claud Allister, John Slater, Peter Gawthorne, Claude Bailey, Anthony Hawtrey, David Horne, Francis Lister, Ruby Miller, Brefni O’Rorke, John Salew, and C Denier Warren.

Release date: 3 April 1944 (UK).

The Hundred Pound Window is directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, runs 84 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, is written by Abem Finkel (screenplay), Brock Williams (screenplay) and Rodney Ackland (additional dialogue), based on a story by Mark Hellinger, is shot in black and white by Otto Heller, is produced by Max Milder, and is scored by Hans May, with music and lyrics by Alan Stranks.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,520

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