Inspector Hornleigh (film)

Plot

Inspector Hornleigh of Scotland Yard stumbles upon the theft of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's budget secrets, a crime which he ties to a murder he is investigating.

Cast

Production

The film is a spin-off from a popular BBC radio series of the 1930s, Inspector Hornleigh Investigates, created and written by Hans Wolfgang Priwin, which ran on the BBC from 1937 to 1940.

For the purposes of the film, the leading characters are somewhat modified (and, significantly, the screenplay is not written by Priwin): the actor who played Inspector Hornleigh on the BBC, S.J. Warmington, is here replaced by comedian Gordon Harker, and is given a bumbling comedic sidekick, played by Scottish comedy actor Alastair Sim.

The BBC series was a serious detective drama. However, in this film the two leading characters play the script for laughs, and the casting of two well known comedy stars in the parts indicates that this was the Director's intention. Furthermore, the pair have dialogue which includes frequent jokes, and Sgt Bingham's character is included solely as comic relief. Although the rest of the cast behave as if they are in a straight drama, this simply emphasises the behaviour of Harker and Sim.

To emphasise that this was a comedy film series, and to enhance the comedy double-act between Harker and Sim, the subsequent films in the series would be written by the noted comedy screenwriting partnership of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat.

Although released in 1939, the film carries a copyright notice dated 1938. It was made by Argyle Television Films, but was given a cinema release in the UK.

Reception

The film was sufficiently well-received by audiences to justify two sequels: Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday (1939), and Inspector Hornleigh Goes To It (1940).