Hotel Splendide – 1932 | 53mins | Crime| B&W

Plot Synopsis

Jerry Mason, a publicity manager, inherits a seaside hotel but is approached by a gang of crooks who have buried their loot from a robbery on the site where the hotel now stands. Mason manages to find the loot before the gang and claims the reward.

Hotel Splendide was the first of Powell’s films for Gaumont-British who had recently invited Michael Balcon to take charge of production at their Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd’s Bush. Balcon later produced such classics for Gaumont as The 39 Steps and Rome Express before taking command at Ealing Studios. Hotel Splendide was another vehicle for Jerry Verno who here fell into the tradition of comedy thriller heroes whose screen characters invariable use their own real first name – later examples of this include George Formby and Norman Wisdom – in an effort to establish some sort of screen ‘identity’. A print of Hotel Splendide was recovered from Pinewood Studio vaults in 1950 and restored by the National Film Archive.