Dupont was mostly assigned to B pictures in America but used the relatively low budgets imaginatively. The Bishop Misbehaves stars Edmund Gwenn as a Father Brown type who reads mystery stories and stumbles on to an actual one, as Maureen O'Sullivan and Norman Foster are trying to rob Reginald Owen of valuable papers that prove he stole O'Sullivan's father's invention. Foster is an American who has a gun and when he falls for O'Sullivan after seeing her in the cathedral he reluctantly joins her in the attempted robbery. The robbery fails when the bishop and his spinster sister accidentally barge into it and the papers fall into his hands. The crooks that O'Sullivan hired to help her take off with the papers and Foster, O'Sullivan, the bishop and his sister chase them to the Limehouse area where they retrieve the papers and show them to Owen, who puts them in the fire. The bishop admits defeat and says he will have to reveal all to his congregation, causing Owen to finally write a check to O'Sullivan for the money he stole from her father.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
E.A. Dupont's The Bishop Misbehaves (1935)
E.A. Dupont was a pioneer of the German film industry (Variete, 1926) who went to London and then emigrated to the U.S (see my post of January 27, 2017). In England he made Piccadilly (1929), giving Anna May Wong a leading role, which took place in the Limehouse area of London, an important location for The Bishop Misbehaves.
Dupont was mostly assigned to B pictures in America but used the relatively low budgets imaginatively. The Bishop Misbehaves stars Edmund Gwenn as a Father Brown type who reads mystery stories and stumbles on to an actual one, as Maureen O'Sullivan and Norman Foster are trying to rob Reginald Owen of valuable papers that prove he stole O'Sullivan's father's invention. Foster is an American who has a gun and when he falls for O'Sullivan after seeing her in the cathedral he reluctantly joins her in the attempted robbery. The robbery fails when the bishop and his spinster sister accidentally barge into it and the papers fall into his hands. The crooks that O'Sullivan hired to help her take off with the papers and Foster, O'Sullivan, the bishop and his sister chase them to the Limehouse area where they retrieve the papers and show them to Owen, who puts them in the fire. The bishop admits defeat and says he will have to reveal all to his congregation, causing Owen to finally write a check to O'Sullivan for the money he stole from her father.
I have oversimplified a complex plot with many themes close to the surface: the differences between the English and the Americans (with frequent references to Foster's American accent), the poor versus the rich in a showdown in Limehouse and other class conflicts, the importance of O'Sullivan as a leader of an all-male gang, the influence of the church and detective novels in England, etc. The cast includes many superb English character actors, including Robert Greig, Lucille Watson, Dudley Diggs, as well as Gwenn and Owen. The action takes place almost exclusively at night and Dupont and his cinematographer James Van Trees capture it beautifully in shadows, chiaroscuro and backlighting. The bishop does not actually misbehave, except for a brief grope of Maureen O'Sullvan when the lights are turned out to confuse the robbers.
Dupont was mostly assigned to B pictures in America but used the relatively low budgets imaginatively. The Bishop Misbehaves stars Edmund Gwenn as a Father Brown type who reads mystery stories and stumbles on to an actual one, as Maureen O'Sullivan and Norman Foster are trying to rob Reginald Owen of valuable papers that prove he stole O'Sullivan's father's invention. Foster is an American who has a gun and when he falls for O'Sullivan after seeing her in the cathedral he reluctantly joins her in the attempted robbery. The robbery fails when the bishop and his spinster sister accidentally barge into it and the papers fall into his hands. The crooks that O'Sullivan hired to help her take off with the papers and Foster, O'Sullivan, the bishop and his sister chase them to the Limehouse area where they retrieve the papers and show them to Owen, who puts them in the fire. The bishop admits defeat and says he will have to reveal all to his congregation, causing Owen to finally write a check to O'Sullivan for the money he stole from her father.
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