The Man Behind the Mask – 1936 | 79mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Nick Barclay and June Slade plan to elope from a masked ball when Nick is attacked by a man who takes his mask and kidnaps June, also stealing the Shield of Kahm, which June’s father Lord Slade has just acquired. Nick manages to rescue June and the Shield, but then both are tricked, along with Lord Slade, into going to a house where the leader of an international gang intends to retake the Shield. The police arrive and the crooks are arrested.

A feature, as opposed to another ‘quickie’, The Man Behind the Mask was ‘a very old-fashioned thriller’, said Powell. ‘It was actually a story published in magazine form of four or five episodes rather after the style of A.E.W Mason detective thrillers’. Finding the material unpromising, the director ‘did my best to make it into a really rather sort of a German-type expressionist thriller. It was very hard work indeed because we had no money … The only good that came out of it was that I met Joe Rock’. Michael Powell‘s final work before embarking on his career as a major feature director, The Man Behind the Mask was made by a small independent company.