Raffles

EW Hornung's 'Raffles' helped fix the ideal of the gentleman amateur, the handsome urbane sportsman with a hankering for illicit adventure. In this caper, scripted by Sidney Howard, Raffles romances Lady Gwen Manders (Francis), hobnobs with royalty, and pinches a priceless necklace for a suicidal friend who can't honour a debt. John Barrymore had played the hero a few years before, David Niven was to play him a few years later, but neither matched Colman's effortless, brilliantined charm.