Film review: The Phantom Light (1935)

Continuing our run of lesser-known 30s and 40s British films, this one is from YouTube.  (We thought that would mean we could follow along with the subtitles, but there were some truly laughable mistakes as the AI (?) struggled with a muffled soundtrack and Welsh/Cockney accents.)  It's an early Michael "Black Narcissus/The Red Shoes" Powell number, and stars Gordon "Inspector Hornleigh" Harker as Sam Higgins, who is shown at the beginning of the film arriving in Wales by train.  The first person he encounters at the tiny station is an old woman dressed in an outfit 

that I recognized from the dolls for sale at the gift shop of the Welsh Adventure Holiday Sophy and I went to when I was about 8, who speaks only Welsh.  Higgins, who is a cockney come down to Wales to be the new lighthouse keeper, is so exhasperated that when he finds a fellow cockney working elsewhere in the station he quips "Ah! A fellow white man!"  Also waiting at the station is Alice Bright, enthusiastically if not very impressively played by the British Joan Blondell, "Binnie" Hale.  

Exactly what she's there for is never conclusively revealed, as she tells a series of lies about it.  But both of them eventually get a car into the village, where Higgins (who is definitely the comic relief) is surprised to find just about everyone has the last name Owen ("is nobody paying?") and that there are all kinds of strange stories about the lighthouse and previous keepers.  They keep ending up dead, except for the current remaining keeper, who is (violently) insane.  And there are stories of the light failing just when needed, only for a "phantom" light to appear that has lured ships onto the rocks.  While waiting to be transported to the (offshore) lighthouse, Higgins is bribed by somebody he takes to be a journalist to take him along, but resists (except for accepting the drinks he keeps buying).  When he gets to the lighthouse

(which is either a great set or a genuine lighthouse) he finds a dour older assistant (Claff Owen) 

and his nephew, who is the crazy one, 

who alternates between passing out and attacking people.  Higgins wants him tied up, and the doctor who comes along gives him sedatives, but Claff insists he's a good lad.  There's also Tom, a nice young man who minds the light.  Higgins is not happy, but settles in, and we see him boasting about his sausage-cooking skills that evening, as Claff tells him spooky stories about the recent goings-on.  

The nephew kicks up a fuss so Higgins gets his way about tying him up, when the "journalist" arrives in a boat that he claims has run out of petrol, and we all discover that he has unbeknownst brought along Alice as a stowaway.  After some salacious scenes of Annie changing out of her wet clothes 

(and humorous scenes of her turning Higgns's best Sunday trousers into shorts) We are led to believe that both of the are up to something suspicious when the "journalist" starts setting up some kind of electrical equipment in the room that contains the trussed-up nephew.  But then things start to go seriously awry.

A good balance between thrills and laughs, this one could easily form the plot of a Scooby Doo episode, as several characters turn out to be not what they appeared to be.  All except Sam Higgins, that is, who is the same sardonic cockney quipster throughout.  Just the kind of film that used to be on on BBC 2 of a weekend afternoon, ideal viewing when it's wet and miserable outside: zips by without pausing for breath with a very satisfying denouement.