Her Last Affaire – 1936 | 78mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Lady Avril Weyre, the wife of a promising politician, is found dead at a country inn where she had been accompanied by her husband’s secretary, Alan Heriot. Heriot is immediately under suspicion, although he had taken her there solely to gain information which would exonerate his father. He is eventually cleared, and marries Lady Avril’s daughter Judy.

Powell was less happy about Her Last Affaire, ‘a social comedy on a very old theme’, made at Beaconsfield Studios, but was pleased to be working with Hugh Williams. On screen since 1931, Williams had been an impressive Steerforth in MGM’s David Copperfield (1935), but had immediately returned to England, seemingly unimpressed by Hollywood. A later sojourn took him back across the Atlantic to play the dissolute Hindley Earnshaw of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights for Samuel Goldwyn in 1939, but his best work was to he seen in British pictures like Rome Express (1932), Brief Ecstasy and Bank Holiday (both 1937). Powell found him to be ‘an extremely polished, arrogant young actor’.

The original stage play of Her Last Affaire had been a great success, with Gracie Fields taking her first straight role. Googie Withers took the part in the film which was not well received on release although Powell claimed ‘We worked very hard on it’. A rogue print of Her Last Affaire with a cast drawn largely from the West End stage was discovered in the mid 1980s and restored by the National Film Archive.