The Frog is a 1937 British crime film directed by Jack Raymond and starring Gordon Harker, Noah Beery, Jack Hawkins and Carol Goodner.[2] The film is about the police chasing a criminal mastermind who goes by the name of The Frog. It was based on the 1925 novel The Fellowship of the Frog by Edgar Wallace, and the 1936 play version by Ian Hay. It was followed by a loose sequel The Return of the Frog, the following year.

The Frog
Directed byJack Raymond
Written byIan Hay (adaptation)
Gerald Elliott (screenplay)
Based onnovel The Fellowship of the Frog by Edgar Wallace
Produced byHerbert Wilcox
StarringGordon Harker
Noah Beery
Jack Hawkins
Carol Goodner
CinematographyFreddie Young (as F.A. Young)
Edited byMerrill G. White (as Merrill White)
Frederick Wilson (as Fred Wilson)
Production
company
Distributed byGeneral Film Distributors (UK)
Release date
  • 20 June 1937 (1937-06-20) (UK)[1]
Running time
75 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Cast

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Critical reception

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Writing for Night and Day in 1937, Graham Greene gave the film a poor review, describing it as "badly directed [and] badly acted". He admitted that "it has an old-world charm" but complained that the "well-mannered dialogue drones on".[3]

Britmovie called it a "routine thriller",[4] while British Pictures observed that the film "suffers through being an adaptation of a theatre adaptation (by Ian Hay) of the original novel. Some of the exposition is clunky and at times confusing; and the direction needed someone like Walter Forde to make the most of it. Hawkins and Harker, in the roles they played on stage, hold it together."[5]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ 'The Frog: New Gallery (A) Sunday', News Chronicle, 19 June 1937, p.10
  2. ^ "The Frog". BFI. Archived from the original on 14 January 2009.
  3. ^ Graham Greene, 'We from Kronstadt/The Frog/Make Way for Tomorrow/Der Herrscher', Night and Day, 1 July 1937; reprinted in John Russell Taylor (ed), The Pleasure Dome, Oxford University Press 1980, p.150
  4. ^ "The Frog". britmovie.co.uk.
  5. ^ David Absalom. "ARCHIVE Fou - Fz: British Films of the 30s, 40s and 50s". britishpictures.com.
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