Elstree Calling

Brunel's 'revolutionary plans for camera and editing treatment' for Britain's first musical were thwarted by the Elstree establishment, but the film's display of revue artists and music hall stars of another age has a hypnotic quality hardly affected by its primitive technique. Worth seeing, if only as a belated guide to 'What's On in London, 1930'. In the print under review, the stencil-coloured dancing girls have been restored. Brunel served as supervising director; Hitchcock directed the sketches; Charlot, Hulbert and Murray the ensemble numbers.