Quality Street: Filmography

 1927 M-G-M silent film version

 “QUALITY STREET” COMES TO SCREEN: Marion Davies Appears With Much Charm in Old Barrie Play

By MORDAUNT HALL

SOME of the persons who translate plays and novels into a screen script ought to realize that to earn their pennies it is not necessary to change for the mere sake of changing. The result of the film man’s work is invariably less engaging than that of the original author. They took Booth Tarkington's charming story “Monsieur Beaucaire” and turned it topsy-turvy and in doing so adroitly eliminated any mystery regarding the identity of Beaucaire. There have been a number of other instances where stories have been sapped of their vitality by the desire of adapters to show that they have done a great deal of work.

Fortunately Sir James M, Barrie’s charming old play, “Quality Street,” has been attacked more gently, but even here it was found necessary to give a whole chapter to an incident hinted at by the Scot and in doing this another portion of the story was robbed of some of its suspense. Clever as Hans Kraely, one of the scenario writers in this case, is at some adaptations, he has his limitations. Some real student of Barrie might have given to the film of “Quality Street” a truer flavor of the celebrated author. Mr. Kraely is a German who seems to think that at times he can do better than Barrie in Barrie's own work. The nice comedy in “Quality Street” is frequently omitted and while that which is introduced is not harsh or annoying, it is that of the hand of the adapter and not that of Barrie.

The picturization of “Quality Street” is quite a refreshing piece of work despite the changes and omissions, and Marion Davies gives a delightful portrayal of Phoebe Throssel. At times it occurs to one that the movements of the women in the costumes of olden days are the movements of those who have enjoyed short skirts and feel that they must necessarily take jerky, quick steps when wearing the quaint dresses. That, after all, may be but a trivial matter. Miss Davies seems to appreciate Barrie’s ideas and she would have been able to give an excellent reflection of Phoebe showing the door to the diligent recruiting sergeant, an incident that did not meet with the favor of Mr. Kraely and his associate.

Sidney Franklin and his assistants have given in this film an entrancing conception of that little quiet thoroughfare known as Quality Street. Mr. Franklin also makes the most of Captain Valentine Brown (Conrad Nagel) going to a mirror and plucking out, very seriously, some of his few gray hairs. Little things help to make the Barriesque touches. For instance, one realizes that when Captain Brown stalks up to 56 Quality Street to ridicule in a good-natured way Phoebe’s gross deception in posing as a mythical niece, he knocks twice on the door. Now a quick double knock on the door is the postman's knock, and, before the days of electric bells, the visitor invariably gave a rat-tat-tat. A mere two knocks such as Captain Brown gives in this picture means really nothing beyond perhaps a boy who has stuffed a circular under the door. And Brown a dashing officer!

Miss Davies makes a stunning transformation when, after appearing in a white cap and goggles, she is seen again with ringlet curls. This happens when she is posing as the niece she has invented. Phoebe becomes saucy, mischievous and completely baffles the dashing Captain Brown.

Mr. Nagel is really excellent as Captain Brown. He, too, seems to have something of the Barrie mood in this role. Helen Jerome Eddy does well with the part of Susan Throssel.

When one remembers what was done with Barrie’s “Admiral Crichton,” which came to the screen under the awful title of “Male and Female,” one feels grateful for the gentle handling of “Quality Street,” which is the sort of thing to make one forget, while in the Embassy Theatre, the noise and glare of Broadway.

The New York Times, 6 November 1927, p.7

* * * * * * * * * *

 Kate Price as Patty, Marion Davies as Phoebe and Helen Jerome Eddy as Susan Throssel

* * * * * * * * * *

“Quality Street”

Marion Davies Scores Artistic Triumph
In Sumptuous Production of Barrie Play

JUST how Marion Davies in Barrie’s whimsical comedy of a Victorian courtship will fare in the lesser houses is more or less problematical, but there is no question as to her success in realizing on the screen the charming play originally done for Maude Adams. “Quality Street” will be one of the season’s artistic successes, and should do exceedingly well in the better class of theatres.

This play of love in a small English town is too light and fragile to appeal to a clientele reared on Westerns and melodrama, but it possesses a very real charm, and much of the atmosphere of the stage original has been transferred to the screen. Even Sir James himself should be content with the fidelity with which the scenarists have transferred his flavor to the screen. The production has genuine charm, and the careful mounting enhances the value of a well-told story and good acting.

Long reaches of village streets and quaint gardens serve to preserve faithfully the locale of the play and add to the effect of the quaint interiors, with the result that in excellent photography the visual appeal keeps pace with the mental attraction.

The story of the middle-aged spinster who creates a mythical niece to tempt her girlhood sweetheart on his return from the war against Napoleon, only to find that she has raised a Frankenstein who will not [lie] down until the sweetheart solves the problem, has been charmingly told in careful direction by Sidney Franklin. Both he and Albert Lewin and Hans Kraly, the scenarists, deserve credit along with the excellent cast.

Miss Davies has recently demonstrated that she is at her best in broad comedy, but she handles exceedingly well the delicate humor of Phoebe Throssel, and gives far greater variety to her moods than was evidenced in her earlier work. She brings conviction to an imaginative part and stands out humanly in a play in which an artificial atmosphere has purposely been created. Helene Jerome Eddy, as the sister, proves an excellent foil, and Kate Price, as the sympathetic servant, contributes importantly to the broad comedy, in which section she is ably supported by Flora Finch, Margaret Seddon and Marcelle Corday as a trio of gossips whose overwhelming curiosity precipitates the situation. They all play just sufficiently off the natural key to emphasize the whimsical quality of the composition. Conrad Nagel, in the only male role, carries his part well. There also are a number of children used with great effect in a few of the scenes.

“Quality Street” may not be the money maker that “The Fair Co-Ed” will prove to be, but it will materially enhance Miss Davies’ artistic standing.

“Quality Street” is paved with roses instead of brickbats.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Presents
“Quality Street”
From the play by Sir James M. Barrie
A Cosmopolitan production
Directed by Sidney Franklin
Distributed by M-G-M

Length—7,193 Feet

Moving Picture World; November 12, 1927; Vol. 89, No. 2, p.26

Conrad Nagel as Valentine Brown with Marion Davies

Conrad Nagel, Marion Davies & Helene Jerome Eddy

Marion Davies & Helene Jerome Eddy

Conrad Nagel and Marion Davies

Film stills from IMDb

* * * * * * * * * *

QUALITY STREET.

Exchange: M.-G.-M.
Star: Marion Davies.
Cast: Conrad Nagle, Helen Jerome Eddy, Flora Finch, Margaret Seddon, Marcell Corday, Kate Price.
Director: Sydney Franklin.
Releasing Theatres: Hoyts and Strand.
Length: 7904ft.
Type of Story: Whimsical romance based on the Sir James M. Barrie play.
Box Office: Good feature.

A brilliant picturisation of one of Barrle’s most lovable works, this picture embodies all the charm and refreshing quality of the original. To catch the right atmosphere, and maintain subtleties as Barrie fashioned them, is a big task for a dlrector, but Sidney Franklin has done the job with a finesse and completeness that calls for high praise. The artistic background of old England in the Napoleonic Wars period is impressively carried out, and the characters convey all the fragrant beauty and romantic appeal of the time.

Briefly the story tells of Phoebe Throssell’s love for Dr. Valentine Brown, who just as she expects him to ask her to marry him leaves for the Wars. He returns ten years after to find that stress of circumstances has forced the Throssell sisters to turn their Quality Street home into a school house. Phoebe has aged somewhat, but when she imagines Brown has weakened in his ardor, because of this she decides to test his professed regard. She impersonates a fictitious niece, “Livvy,” and then goes out to win Brown with her wiles. He is immediately impressed by the flirtatious young lady, but eventually her deception is unmasked. However, not before he has proved that his affection was entirely concentrated on Phoebe, who he then marries.

Marion Davies plays Phoebe, and her work throughout is great. She portrays the role with finish, and at no time, either in comedy or pathos, does she break the whimsical spell woven by the story. Conrad Nagel makes an impressive Valentine Brown and Helen Jerome Eddy does well as Susan Throssell.

In the better class houses this picture will please audiences immensely. For such theatres it deserves the rating of Excellent; but where patrons tend towards something a little more boisterous, the appeal may not be strong enough to get it over to the full box-office value.

(Reviews of Recent Releases) – Everyones (Sydney), 4 April 1928, p.10

Marion Davies

Conrad Nagel & Marion Davies

 The complete 1927 silent film may be viewed on the Internet Archive at the following link: https://archive.org/details/quality-street_1927

* * * * * * * * * *

1937 RKO sound remake

RKO’s remake of Quality Street starred Katharine Hepburn in her second screen appearance as a Barrie heroine, having previously played the role of Lady Babbie in RKO’s 1934 film version of The Little Minister starring John Beal in the title role.

* * * * * * * * * *

Film Notes

BARRIE ON THE SCREEN

Miss Hepburn in “Quality Street”

By SYDNEY W. CARROLL

I am beginning to loathe the sight of “whimsical.” When will the word fail to appear in print whenever a film, a play, or a book associated with the name of Barrie comes in sight? Surely the many other qualities of this gifted and lamented genius entitle him to a more secure niche in the Temple of Fame?

“Quality Street” has the real Barrie charm. A visit to the New Gallery establishes the remarkable fact that not even Katharine Hepburn, with all the resources of Hollywood to help her, can destroy or even injure the delicate fabric of this typical Barrie comedy. It captures sympathy, emotion and laughter with equal security. It may have one or two errors in casting, but on the whole it provides an entertainment whose mildly satirical-sentimental mixture should prove very much to the taste of all English-speaking communities.

Miss Hepburn may not be exactly “Phoebe of the Ringlets,” but she has an irresistible allure in her own right. She can be demure and proper, coquettish or joyous. Her acting shows a quality that of late it has not revealed. Franchot Tone is admirable as her admirer. Eric Blore is as amusing as ever; and in the cast are such interesting players as Estelle Winwood, Fay Bainter, and Helena Grant.

The Sunday Times (London), Sunday, 25 July 1937, p.10

* * * * * * * * * *

NEW FILMS IN LONDON

GALLERY

Quality Street.—Barrie’s play has two obvious characteristics without which it would be nothing, and which at first sight would not seem easiiy transferable to a film. There is, of course, its flavour or its sentiment, impalpably irresistible or disquieting according to the taste and perhaps the generation of the audience, and this might easily be disturbed or dissipated in an American film. There is, too, its purely theatrical technique, its devices and tricks which are an integral part of the plot, the sole reason for the plot's existence, and meaningless, as one might easily think, apart from the stage. As to the first quality, the special and peculiar sentiment, the American actors manage to preserve it with surprising success, and between them Miss Katharine Hepburn and Mr. Franchot Tone reconstruct it as well as the film, in all its scenery and dresses, reconstructs the early nineteenth century. But in earlier films the Americans have already shown a startling capacity for reproducing the flavour of certain English works, and the second quality of the play sets them a much harder task. Obviously certain effects must go, and there can no longer be the same elegantly unobtrusive suspense, the same skilful and concealed devices to hold the attention when there is really so little happening.. And yet on the whole, though the effect is rougher and there is a less complete unity, one still has the impression of a fragile story, deliberately and even evasively slight, told with an astonishing neatness and precision. No doubt the actual story, apart from the theatrical devices that are connected with it, is rather more compact and substantial in construction than would appear at first sight, but equally the film shows great ingenuity and tact in substituting a similar lightness and ease.

The Times (London), Monday, 26 July 1937, p.10

Phoebe Throssel is trying to be very stern and schoolmarm-ish as a result of having lost her fortune through Valentine Brown's bad advice.

Phoebe finds it's not so easy to be stern. One of her impertinent pupils, (CLIFFORD SEVERN), is daring her to cane him.

* * * * * * * * * *

BEST FILM OF THE WEEK IS
“Quality Street” For Its Atmosphere

Katherine Hepburn, Franchot Tone, Period Pieces, — Mayfair.

ONE of the most difficult people to capture with a camera is J.M. Barrie. He travels into realms which are not meant for celluloid, and yet R.K.O.-Radio has made a finely sensitive thing of “Quality Street.”

The selection of players is admirable. Here is a company of the elect, a company taken from among the most exquisite bits in the cabinet of memories, and brought to life.

Let it be made plain at the outset that “Quality Street” is sentimental — it would not be of Quality Street otherwise.

These ladies, living almost exactly identical lives in this street, peering from behind their curtains when the postman delivers a letter, and yet fascinatingly unlike in their characters. They are adorable; one could not bear to think that they were not behind one a hundred years or so ago.

This picture must have an elusive quality, and it is to the credit of Katherine Hepburn that she scarcely ever comes down to hard facts which suggest the 20th century. Not for a long time has she given so satisfactory a performance. In the early scenes as the over-ingenuous Phoebe Throssel, who thinks that the “dashing Mr. Brown” is about to make a declaration, she has a quality which is lacking when, after 10 years of absence at “the wars,” Mr. Brown returns and appears to find poor Phoebe so tragically aged.

Then Phoebe becomes Olivia, a visiting niece. She dresses in made-over finery, she goes to the ball, she captivates the officers, but she is not the Phoebe of 20. That dewiness has gone, and it is here that Miss Hepburn paints so gifted a portrait.

“Quality Street” has charming people. Franchot Tone does admirably as Mr. Brown, but it is the ladies who leave the impression on the mind.

It would have been worth while taking Fay Bainter much farther than from New York to Hollywood for her Susan Throssel, the self-sacrificing, bewildered elder sister who is terrified of the rude boys in her school. She fits into the Barrie frame quite perfectly. The others, too, are true to the perlod. Estelle Winwood, as Mary Willoughby, is so beautifully determined, and even bold, mark you, in her prying, while the Misses Henrietta Turnbull and Fanny Willoughby, even if dragged along by Miss Mary, are still positively palpitating with excitement over the mystery of Olivia. Florence Lake is Henrietta, and Helena Grant, Fanny.

Satisfying as they are, these do not go without challenge, for Cora Witherspoon contributes the redoubtable Patty, who has been keeping an eye out for romance for 15 years, and then there is Eric Blore’s so bold sergeant!

The Sun (Sydney) Monday, 27 September 1937, p. 13

Valentine Brown has gone off to the wars without proposing and Phoebe looks sadly at a keepsake rose. She is with her elder sister, Susan (FAY BAINTER).

The Throssel sisters, Phoebe and Susan, lose their money through the bad financial advice given by Valentine Brown.

* * * * * * * * * *

BARRIE PLAY AT STATE THEATRE
QUALITY STREET.
KATHERINE HEPBURN AND FRANCHOT TONE.

In the screen presentation of Barrle's romantic comedy-drama Quality Street, which is the main feature of the programme at the State Theatre this week, RKO Radio has provided an enlarged and attractive setting for this picturesque play, and succeeded in retaining the charm and characteristic humor associated with the original stage production.

Katherine Hepburn appears in the role of Phoebe, the disappointed lady, who masquerades as a fictitious niece in order to recapture the love of her former admirer when he failed to recognise her on his return from the wars after an absence of ten years. The part of this remiss soldier (Mr. Brown, the doctor) is played by Franchot Tone, and the cast includes Fay Bainter (as Phoebe’s elder sister, Susan), Eric Blore (the comical sergeant), Cora Wltherspoon (Patty, the house maid), Estelle Winwood and Helena Grant (the Willoughby sisters). The atmosphere of the stage pervades the acting in most of the indoor scenes, and the performance of Katherine Hepburn in the latter acts of the play is not as convincing as one might expect, although it would take a super actress to make a real person of Barrie’s heroine in this amusing play. It is Franchot Tone who gives the outstanding performance, in an artistic and wholly pleasing representation of the handsome young doctor. In the various moods and scenes, Eric Blore is not at his best, but Cora Witherspoon is a humorous maid, and others in the cast give a good account of themselves.

The Age (Melbourne) Monday, 24 January 1938, p.17 

 When Valentine Brown (FRANCHOT TONE) comes back from the wars he fails to recognise Phoebe, but he flirts merrily with Phoebe’s supposed niece, Olivia.

Film stills published in The Sketch (London), 14 April 1937, p.63 & 21 July 1937, p.140 

* * * * * * * * * *

The complete 1937 RKO - Radio Pictures film may be viewed on YouTube at the following link:

 * * * * * * * * * *

Television productions

BBC Television

Broadcast: Thursday, 28 August 1947 at 8.30 p.m.

Repeat performance: Friday, 29 August 1947 at 3 p.m.

Dances arranged by Charlotte Bidmead

Produced by Campbell Logan

Cast, in order of appearance: 

 A Barrie Comedy

SIR JAMES BARRIE when writing his plays always preferred people who refused to grow up. Since he died, his works have retained for the public this lasting quality of eternal youth. In his day he was the master of escapism, and in Mary Rose its enchantment was so potent that the bride actually evaporated in Scotch mist before her husband’s eyes, as viewers once saw. On Thursday it is the turn of Quality Street, possibly his most famous comedy. This is a solider piece of whimsy, a peep back into the world of Kate Greenaway and Jane Austen, of country life at the time of Waterloo.

Television requires considerable adaptation from a stage production, so the producer (Campbell Logan) has engaged Bruce Belfrage as narrator to speak Barrie’s stage directions, which in this play are very distinctive. Phoebe Throssel, the part created in the original production at the Vaudeville in September 1902 by Ellaline Terriss, will be played by Thea Holme, and the dashing Captain Valentine, the part created by Seymour Hicks, will be taken by Bryan Coleman.

Radio Times (London), Issue 1245, 24 - 30 August 1947, p.29

 * * * * * * * * * *

Thea Holme (1942)

Bryan Coleman (1952)

 * * * * * * * * * *

In the U.S. Quality Street was televised “live” to air as episode 24 in the first series of the Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse on Sunday, 13 March 1949 starring Marsha Hunt as Phoebe Throssel and Alfred Drake as Valentine Brown. 

In New York it was telecast on WBNT Channel 4 from 9 to 10 p.m.  (At the time, Alfred Drake was still starring on Broadway in the Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate from Monday to Saturday.)

  * * * * * * * * * *

Radio broadcasts

The first radio production of Quality Street would appear to have been the Lux Radio Theatre presentation starring Ruth Chatterton as Phoebe Throsssel, Brian Aherne as Valentine Brown and Kathleen Lockhart as Susan Throssel, with narration and production by Cecil B. DeMille, first broadcast in the U.S. on Monday, 14 September 1936 on the CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) radio network. The Lux Radio Theatre generally presented potted versions of current Hollywood films with one or more of the original stars taking part (when available), but in this case the radio version preceded the 1937 RKO remake and featured none of the subsequent film’s stars.

In Britain the first BBC radio production of Quality Street did not reach the airwaves until 1942 starring Peggy Ashcroft as Phoebe and Hugh Williams as Valentine, followed by further broadcasts in 1945, starring Nova Pilbeam and David King-Wood, and in 1949, starring husband-and-wife, Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray, with a young Hattie Jacques as Patty; (further cast and broadcast details below.)

In Australia the ABC broadcast one hour radio adaptations of Quality Street (by Musette Morell, with production by John Cairns), starring the versatile Melbourne actress, Patricia Kennedy over the National Network on Sunday, 19 December 1943 from 8 to 9 p.m.; and on ABC Saturday Night Drama on 11 September 1948 at 8 p.m., with Douglas Kelly co-starring as Valentine in the latter broadcast.

While the Lux Radio Theatre version (performed by an Australian cast) was broadcast on Sunday, 24 February 1946 on 2UW (Sydney), 3DB (Melbourne) and 3LK (Central Victoria), starring Nigel Lovell and Brenda Dunrich as Valentine and Phoebe, with Queenie Ashton as Susan.

The ABC Weekly, 4 September 1948, p.3

Melbourne radio actor, Douglas Kelly

The ABC Weekly, 29 March 1941, p.1

* * * * * * * * * *

BBC Radio broadcasts

BBC Home Service

Broadcast: Sunday, 8 February 1942 at 3.30 p.m.

Produced by Mary Hope Allen

The cast:

Radio Times (London), 6 February 1942, p.6

* * * * * * * * * *

Broadcast: Saturday, 17 November 1945 at 9.20 p.m. on BBC Home Service

Repeat broadcast: Monday, 19 November 1945 at 4.00 p.m. on BBC Light Programme

Adapted and produced by Howard Rose

The cast:

 * * * * * * * * * *

Nova Pilbeam

IMDb

Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray (1948)

(photo by Fred Daniels)

National Portrait Gallery, London

* * * * * * * * * *

BBC Home Service

Broadcast: Monday, 26 December 1949 at 9.15 p.m.

Adaptation and production by Mary Hope Allen

(BBC Recording)

Cast in order of speaking:

 STEPHEN WILLIAMS writes on this week’s drama

‘IF all the little pink toes of all the little pink babies born in Thrums were laid end to end they would stretch as far as the Never-Never-Land … ’

Yes, we’ve heard it all many times, and greeted it, no doubt, with a malicious chuckle; malicious because there it always a certain wicked satisfaction in being able to parody a man who gets under our skins. A mean revenge, perhaps; but we resent people getting under our skins. The fellow has made us blush. He has hit us below the belt with his bundles of literary baby-ribbon and his wee wifies stirring the stockpot, and hugging themselves with the reflection that they can twist round their fingers those great overgrown children called men as easily as they twist their clacking knitting-needles.

There was never a man so adept at getting under our skins—sometimes by breaking the rules like any confidence trickster—as Barrie. And there was rarely a man so dangerously easy to parody, with his big, know-nothing men, his little, know-everything women and those intolerably arch stage directions (‘She says she will, but we know she won’t—the little minx!’), through which he nudges and winks at the reader while the poor helpless puppets stumble blindly on, making such delicious fools of themselves.

Yes, Barrie is an easy target for ridicule. We protest that his sentiment affects us like having hot treacle poured down the back of the neck or being strapped to a chair and forced to listen throughout the day to the more glutinous kinds of popular sentimental music. We deride him as a canny little Scot who traded on the tradition that women make up the larger and more influential proportion of every audience and therefore set out to flatter them in the most shameless terms. And yet—the undoubted fact remains that the little man had genius.

Quality Street has very little wit that is acid, and the little pink toes of little pink babies are never even hinted at. Indeed, the play will probably please those who fidget under Barrie’s flattery of women, since the “dashing” Mr. Valentine Brown is more than a match in wit and perception for the innocent wiles of the Throssel sisters. I read somewhere that at the age of six Barrie went to a dame’s school run by two maiden ladies who were the prototypes of Susan and Phoebe. I don't doubt that he did; but I don't doubt either that be could have written Quality Street whether he had ever seen the inside of a dame’s school or not. A genius does not need to experience the things he writes.

Radio Times (London), 23 December 1949, p.15