Britmovie - The home of UK Movies

Seven Sinners

Film still

Seven Sinners - 1936 | 67 mins | Thriller | B&W

The Production Team

Director: Albert de Courville.
Producer: Michael Balcon.
Script: Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. Additional dialogue by Austin Melford, adaptation by L. du Garde Peach. (from a story by Bernard Merivale and Arnold Ridley)
Cinematography: Mutz Greenbaum.
Editing: Michael Gordon.
Art Direction: Ernö Metzner.
Costume Department: Marianne.
Sound: A. Birch.
Music Direction: Louis Levy.

The Cast

Edmund Lowe - Harwood
Constance Cummings - Caryl Fenton
Thomy Bourdelle - Monsieur Paul Turbé
Henry Oscar - Axel Hoyt
Felix Aylmer - Sir Charles Webber
Joyce Kennedy - Elizabeth Wentworth
O.B. Clarence - Registrar
Mark Lester - Captain Fitzgerald
Allan Jeayes - Heinrich Wagner
James Harcourt - Vicar

Plot Synopsis

Elaborate train-set comedy thriller filled with Hitchcock-style suspense written by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, and based on Arnold Ridley and Bernard Merivale's play, The Wrecker.

Two Americans, cocky detective Harwood (Edmund Lowe) and sassy insurance investigator Caryl Fenton (Constance Cummings) meet at a Nice hotel to track down a group of criminals responsible for several French train crashes. Whilst at the hotel Harwood discovers the dead body of fellow guest Heinrich Wagner in his hotel room, but when he returns with hotel staff the body has mysteriously disappeared. When Harwood and Caryl later travel to an arranged meeting their train is sabotaged resulting in a massive crash – amongst the wreckage Harwood catches a glimpse of Wagner’s dead body. Harwood and Caryl become suspicious that the train crashes they are investigating are designed to cover up another crime - murder. Back in London the pair pick up the trail of murderous gunrunners.