The Common Touch *** (1941, Geoffrey Hibbert, Greta Gynt, Raymond Lovell, Harry Welchman, Joyce Howard) Classic Movie Review 12,339

Director John Baxter’s sentimental, well-meaning 1941 British melodrama film The Common Touch is a remake of his 1933 film Doss House and stars Geoffrey Hibbert, Greta Gynt, Raymond Lovell, Harry Welchman, and Joyce Howard.

It is about an upright young chap called Peter Henderson (Geoffrey Hibbert) who inherits his father’s business at the age of just 18 and then pretends to be a derelict to examine the poverty-zone London property his manager Cartwright (Raymond Lovell) wants to pull down.

Peter (Hibbert) befriends other down-and-outs, rescues a doss house and sacks the devious Cartwright (Lovell) from his company’s boardroom.

The material, based on an old novel by Herbert Ayres and previously filmed by Baxter, in his first movie, as Doss House in 1933, is very interesting period stuff, almost a document of its time and of course now wildly dated, which is its main charm and allure.

Though you would probably need Charles Chaplin to make this social-conscience material work fully, it is still entertaining and enlightening, with a good cast to make it work.

Pianist Mark Hambourg has a small role and there is also an appearance by bandleader Carroll Gibbons.

John Philip Baxter (31 December 1896 – 21 January 1975) notably directed Deborah Kerr in her first leading role in Love on the Dole (1941), and was producer-director for Flanagan and Allen films in World War Two.

The cast are Geoffrey Hibbert as Peter Henderson, Harry Welchman as “Lincoln’s Inn”, Greta Gynt as Sylvia Meadows, Joyce Howard as Mary, Edward Rigby as “Tich”, Bransby Williams as Ben, George Carney as Charlie, Eliot Makeham as “Inky”, Mark Hambourg as “Chopin”, Paul Martin as Chris, Raymond Lovell as Cartwright, John Longden as Stuart Gordon, Wally Patch as “Nobby”, Edgar Driver as “Oily”, Bernard Miles as Cricket Steward, Scott Sanders as Pat, Ian Maclaren as Harmonica Player, Jerry Verno as Office Messenger, Iris Vandeleur as Alice, Charles Carson as Henderson’s butler Haywood, Ben Williams as Workman watching cricket match, John Slater as Joe, Bill Fraser as Harris, John Turnbull as Father at cricket match, Marian Spencer as Mother at cricket match, Grant Tyler as Son at cricket match, Dennis Wyndham as Commissionaire, and Hector Abbas as Foreigner.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,339

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