Tom Walls
1883 - 1949Tom Kirby Walls (18 February 1883 – 27 November 1949) was an English stage and film actor, producer and director, best known for presenting and co-starring in the Aldwych farces in the 1920s and for starring in and directing the film adaptations of those plays in the 1930s.
Walls spent his early years as an actor, from 1905, mostly in musical comedy, touring the British provinces, North America and Australia and in the West End. He specialised in comic character roles, typically flirtatious middle aged men. In 1922 he went into management in partnership with the comic actor Leslie Henson. They had an early success in the West End with a long-running farce, Tons of Money, after which Walls commissioned and staged a series of farces at the Aldwych Theatre that ran almost continuously over the next decade. He and his co-star Ralph Lynn were among the most popular British actors of their time.
In addition to his work in the theatre, Walls directed and acted in more than forty films between 1930 and 1949. Some of these were screen versions of the successful stage plays, others were specially-written comedies on similar lines, and there were also serious films, particularly later in Walls's career.
A Night Like This
Tom Walls
Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn
Going under cover, P.C. Mahoney passes for a gentleman to get into the notorious Moonstone Club. There he meets Clifford Tope, a ne'er do well who is love with cabaret star Cora Mellish. She in turn has run up steep gambling debts and has paid off the Club's blackmailing owner with a stolen necklace. As things heat up Cora seeks help from the easy-going Tope.
A Night Like This
Spring in Park Lane
Herbert Wilcox
Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding
Life in the normally tranquil high society home of Joshua Howard is disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious footman in this sparkling British romantic comedy hit. Richard acts like anything but a servant. He has aristocratic airs and graces, an expert knowledge of fine art and can play classical music and boogie-woogie on a grand piano with equal aplomb. And is that an Old Etonian tie he's wearing? Judy, is determined to discover Richard's true identity and the reason he's posing as a lowly footman. Bored with the attentions of vain movie stars and eccentric minor nobility, she's captivated by his easy-going charm and ready to fall. But will his scandalous secret come between them and true happiness?
Spring in Park Lane
Strange Boarders
Herbert Mason
Tom Walls, Googie Withers
Pre-war intelligence man Tommy Blythe interrupts his honeymoon to investigate the discovery of vital Air Ministry blueprints on a woman killed in a London road accident. The trail leads to a boarding house in Notting Hill and its varied tenants.
Strange Boarders
The Interrupted Journey
Daniel Birt
Richard Todd, Valerie Hobson
When John North, a budding author, pulls the communication cord of a late night train that is taking him away on a weekend with his publishers wife, he sets in motion a series of events that lead to a train crash, a murder and a police man hunt, but all is not what it seems.
The Interrupted Journey
While I Live
John Harlow
Sonia Dresdel, Carol Raye
In 1922, young pianist and composer Olwen Trevelyan, troubled and sleepless over her inability to finish the final notes of her composition, falls to her death from the cliffs of Cornwall. 25 years on, Olwen has gained posthumous fame as a result of her tragic death and her haunting uncompleted composition 'The Dream of Olwen'. Her reclusive sister Julia (Sonia Dresdel), who has never come to terms with Olwen's death, becomes convinced that Olwen has returned when she meets an amnesiac woman who looks like her.
While I Live
Love Story
Leslie Arliss
Margaret Lockwood, Stewart Granger
After discovering that she has only a short time left to live, concert pianist Lissa travels to Cornwall for the final fling of her life. While there, she falls in love with young mineral prospector Kit, a man whose dark secret prevents him from fighting in the War. Unbeknownst to Lissa, however, Kit's affections are also much in demand from a rival of hers.
Love Story
The Halfway House
Basil Dearden
Mervyn Johns, Glynis Johns
A group of travellers, each with a personal problem that they want to hide, arrive at a mysterious Welsh country inn. There is a certain strangeness in the air as they are greeted by the innkeeper and his daughter. Why are all the newspapers a year old? And why doesn't Gwyneth seem to cast a shadow?
The Halfway House
Turkey Time
Tom Walls
Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn
A group of guests come to stay with the Stoatt family in the seaside town of Eden Bay for Christmas. They soon become involved with an impoverished concert performer whose innocent presence in the house leads to a series of misunderstandings.
Turkey Time
For Valour
Tom Walls
Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn
In this British comedy, set during the Boer War, a foot soldier saves his major's life. The officer is most grateful and puts the soldier in line for a Victoria Cross (a medal for valor). Unfortunately the well-meaning major's actions cause the soldier to be extradited back to England where he must stand trial for a series of crimes he committed before he joined the military. Later the major scours the British jails in search of the heroic lad. He finally finds him recruiting soldiers for WW I.
For Valour
