The Passing of the Third Floor Back

Conrad Veidt - The Stranger
Anna Lee - Vivian
René Ray - 'Stasia
Frank Cellier - Wright
John Turnbull - Major Tomkin
Cathleen Nesbitt - Mrs. Tomkin
Ronald Ward - Chris Penny

The Passing of the Third Floor Back was based on the morality play by Jerome K. Jerome, and originally published as a short story, which dealt with the entry of a mysterious Christ-like figure into a suburban guesthouse play. The stagebound Gaumont film improved on Jerome's play; and was scripted by stalwarts Alma Reville and Michael Hogan, who had to implement the purifications demanded by the BBFC.

The setting is a small boarding house, the Hotel Belle Vue, in Bloomsbury, London, run by Mrs. Sharpe (Mary Clare), a greedy and spiteful landlady, an unmerciful bully of the maid who has been rescued from a reformatory. The boarders are a group of bitterly disappointed people and include a young failed architect, a retired army officer and his wife, their daughter, Vivian(Anna Lee), who is in love with the young architect. The other lodgers are the unpleasant Mr. Wright (Frank Cellier), a builder of slum developments, an Irish woman, Mrs. de Hooley (Sarah Allgood), with grandiose social aspirations and snobbish claims of links to the aristocracy, and a secretary, `on the wrong side of thirty'.

In the basement scullery, Stasia, a young skivvy, works at the sink. A flower she has found, planted and delights in, is thrown to the floor by the landlady, who begrudges her any pleasures. Stasia whines about the unfairness of the world and pleads, `If only there were one decent person in the world, but there isn't.' Her prayer is soon answered for, just as she is rushing despairingly out of the house, a stranger (Conrad Veidt) appears at the door wanting to rent the tiny back room on the third floor. There is a glow around his face, a church archway immediately behind him on the other side of the road. His arrival has a profound effect on the other guests, despite staying for only a short while he shows them a better side to themselves. At the end of the film, Christ-like, the stranger vanishes through the same door as mysteriously as he appeared.