The Last of Mrs. Cheyney

When the nouveau riche American “Fay” (Norma Shearer) hosts a grand charitable party at her temporary London home - under the ever watchful eye of her butler “Charles” (George Barraud), she encounters two junior members of the British aristocracy. “Lord Elton” (Herbert Bunston) is an older gent who considers himself well past his sell-by date on the romantic front; “Lord Dilling” (Basil Rathbone) is the younger, more opportunist of the pair. Annoyingly for him, she seems a little more drawn to the safety of the elder man but he pins his hopes on another meeting at the lavish home of the wealthy “Mrs. Webley” (Maude Turner Gordon). Thing is, though, once they are all congregated at her country pile, “Dilling” thinks he recognises “Charles” from somewhere altogether different and so suspicions aroused, we all begin to wonder just what is going on and whether someone around the high tea table is not whom they say they are. Perhaps more than one? I’m a fan of Rathbone but here he isn’t (nor looks) at his best and neither he nor Shearer really spark together. There is a great deal of dialogue and the whole film struggles to shake of a rather statically theatrical look - I kept expecting the stage to revolve scene to scene. That said, the closing elements in the garden allow both the on-form Bunston to have some fuddy-duddy fun and for us to enjoy the few moments of focus this otherwise rather meandering drama allows. Some plays just don’t transfer to the silver screen so well, and this one is really one of them. Watchable but not so very memorable.