Poison Pen (film)
Encyclopedia
Poison Pen is a 1939
1939 in film
The year 1939 in motion pictures can be justified as being called the most outstanding one ever, when it comes to the high quality and high attendance at the large set of the best films that premiered in the year .- Events :Motion picture historians and film often rate...

 British psychological drama, directed by Paul L. Stein
Paul L. Stein
Paul Ludwig Stein was an Austrian-born film director with 67 films to his credit. Stein began his career in Berlin in 1918 and worked exclusively in the German silent film industry until 1926, when he first went to Hollywood, and spent the next five years commuting between Germany and the U.S.,...

 and starring Flora Robson
Flora Robson
Dame Flora McKenzie Robson DBE was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.-Early life:...

, Reginald Tate
Reginald Tate
Reginald Tate was an English actor, veteran of many roles on stage, in film and on television. He is best remembered as the first actor to play the television science-fiction character Professor Bernard Quatermass, in the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment.-Early life:Reginald...

 and Ann Todd
Ann Todd
Dorothy Anne Todd was an English actress and producer.She was born in Hartford, Cheshire and was educated at St. Winifrid's School, Eastbourne. She became a popular actress from appearing in such films as Perfect Strangers and The Seventh Veil...

. The film is an adaptation of a novel by Welsh author Richard Llewellyn
Richard Llewellyn
Richard Dafydd Vivian Llewellyn Lloyd , better known by his pen name Richard Llewellyn, was a Welsh novelist.Llewellyn Richard Dafydd Vivian Llewellyn Lloyd (8 December 1906 – 30 November 1983), better known by his pen name Richard Llewellyn, was a Welsh novelist.Llewellyn Richard Dafydd...

. Poison Pen is essentially a B-movie
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....

, but enjoys a high reputation for its economy, pace, sustained tension and what is labelled its "magnificent cast".

Plot

The calm of a peaceful English village is shattered when a series of anonymous letters starts being delivered to village homes, containing scurrilous allegations about the recipients and their families. Upstanding and respectable inhabitants find themselves and their loved ones accused in lascivious detail of all manner of moral, sexual and criminal misdeeds. The Reverend Rider (Tate) and his sister Mary (Robson) attempt to defuse the increasing consternation of the villagers by pointing out that the letters are motivated by malice and a desire to stir up trouble, and should be ignored as the nonsense they are. Their efforts meet with little success, and Rider's daughter Ann (Todd) also becomes a target with lewd accusations being made about her fiancé David (Geoffrey Toone
Geoffrey Toone
Geoffrey Toone was an Irish-born character actor.Most of Toone's film roles after the 1930s were in supporting parts, usually as authority figures, though he did play the lead character in the Hammer Films production The Terror of the Tongs in 1961Toone was born in Dublin, Ireland to English...

).

As the letters continue to arrive with ever more outlandish content, the social fabric of the village starts to fall apart. The letters all bear the local postmark, and people start to look suspiciously at their friends and neighbours, wondering who could be behind the campaign. Despite Rider's insistence that the contents of the letters should be disregarded, some notice that the letter-writer seems to have a very detailed knowledge of their personal circumstances, and start to question whether there may be a grain of truth in what is being written. Personal relationships too come under strain.

Soon the entire village is overtaken by suspicion and paranoia, and fingers start to point at Connie Fateley (Catherine Lacey
Catherine Lacey
Catherine Lacey was an English actress who made her film debut in 1938 as the secretive nun who wears high heels in the Alfred Hitchcock film The Lady Vanishes . She was an established stage character player before she was 30...

), a shy young seamstress who lives alone and does not tend to socialise. Convinced that this is exactly the kind of personality which would find vent in a malicious poison pen campaign, the villagers turn against Connie, openly accusing her of being the guilty party and ostracising her from village life. Tragedy follows when the despairing Connie hangs herself from the bellrope in the village church.

Rider preaches a sermon in which he expresses his disgust with his congregation for having driven Connie to suicide without a shred of evidence against her. Most however believe privately that Connie's death was an admission of guilt and feel relief that the ordeal is over. However letters are soon arriving again and the police become involved, keeping watch on local letterboxes in an attempt to catch the culprit. David now starts to receive letters detailing Ann's alleged infidelity, and unstable villager Sam Hurrin (Robert Newton
Robert Newton
Robert Newton was an English stage and film actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the most popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys...

) is targeted with information that his wife Sucal (Belle Chrystall
Belle Chrystall
Belle Chrystall was a British actress who appeared in a number of leading roles in British films during the 1930s. She was born in Preston, Lancashire in 1910. She came to London and after appearing on stage was given a minor part in a film A Warm Corner, directed by Victor Saville but she was...

) is dallying behind his back with local shopkeeper Len Griffin (Edward Chapman
Edward Chapman (actor)
Edward Chapman was an English actor who starred in many films and television programmes, but is chiefly remembered as "Mr. Wilfred Grimsdale", the officious superior and comic foil to Norman Wisdom's character of Pitkin in many of his films from the late 1950s and 1960s.Chapman was born in...

). After drinking himself into a rage that night, he goes out to confront Griffin and shoots him fatally.

The police now begin a round-the-clock surveillance of all letterboxes in the village, the collected letters are analysed and everyone who has been recorded as posting a letter is required to provide the address on the envelope. A handwriting expert is also brought in. The investigations lead in a surprising direction, towards a respected community member who has managed to hide a severely disturbed mind behind a mask of caring efficiency. Realising that the net is finally closing in, the perpetrator descends into a destructive mental frenzy before fatally jumping from a cliff above a local quarry.

Cast

  • Flora Robson
    Flora Robson
    Dame Flora McKenzie Robson DBE was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.-Early life:...

     as Mary Rider
  • Reginald Tate
    Reginald Tate
    Reginald Tate was an English actor, veteran of many roles on stage, in film and on television. He is best remembered as the first actor to play the television science-fiction character Professor Bernard Quatermass, in the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment.-Early life:Reginald...

     as Reverend Rider
  • Ann Todd
    Ann Todd
    Dorothy Anne Todd was an English actress and producer.She was born in Hartford, Cheshire and was educated at St. Winifrid's School, Eastbourne. She became a popular actress from appearing in such films as Perfect Strangers and The Seventh Veil...

     as Ann Rider
  • Robert Newton
    Robert Newton
    Robert Newton was an English stage and film actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the most popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys...

     as Sam Hurrin
  • Belle Chrystall
    Belle Chrystall
    Belle Chrystall was a British actress who appeared in a number of leading roles in British films during the 1930s. She was born in Preston, Lancashire in 1910. She came to London and after appearing on stage was given a minor part in a film A Warm Corner, directed by Victor Saville but she was...

     as Sucal Hurrin
  • Geoffrey Toone
    Geoffrey Toone
    Geoffrey Toone was an Irish-born character actor.Most of Toone's film roles after the 1930s were in supporting parts, usually as authority figures, though he did play the lead character in the Hammer Films production The Terror of the Tongs in 1961Toone was born in Dublin, Ireland to English...

     as David
  • Catherine Lacey
    Catherine Lacey
    Catherine Lacey was an English actress who made her film debut in 1938 as the secretive nun who wears high heels in the Alfred Hitchcock film The Lady Vanishes . She was an established stage character player before she was 30...

     as Connie Fateley
  • Edward Chapman
    Edward Chapman (actor)
    Edward Chapman was an English actor who starred in many films and television programmes, but is chiefly remembered as "Mr. Wilfred Grimsdale", the officious superior and comic foil to Norman Wisdom's character of Pitkin in many of his films from the late 1950s and 1960s.Chapman was born in...

     as Len Griffin
  • Edward Rigby
    Edward Rigby
    Edward Rigby was a British character actor.-Early life:Rigby was the son of Jamaican-born Dr. William Harriot Coke and his wife Liverpool-born Mary Elizabeth of 17 High Street, Ashford. He was educated at Haileybury, and Wye Agricultural College...

     as Badham
  • Cyril Chamberlain
    Cyril Chamberlain
    Cyril Chamberlain was an English film and television actor. He appeared in a number of the early Carry On, Doctor in the House and St. Trinian's films....

     as Peter Cashelton
  • Athole Stewart
    Athole Stewart
    -Selected filmography:Athole appeared in the following films:* Canaries Sometimes Sing * The Speckled Band * The Faithful Heart * The Constant Nymph *Loyalties * The Four Masked Men...

     as Col. Cashelton

  • Mary Hinton as Mrs. Cashelton
  • Wally Patch
    Wally Patch
    Wally Patch was a British character actor, who had supporting roles in many films. He was born Walter Sidney Vinnicombe in Willesden, London on 26 September 1888...

     as Mr. Suggs
  • Ella Retford as Mrs. Suggs
  • Wilfrid Hyde-White
    Wilfrid Hyde-White
    Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English character actor.-Early life and career:Wilfrid Hyde White was born at the rectory in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, the son of William Edward White, canon of Gloucester Cathedral, and his wife, Ethel Adelaide Drought...

     as Postman
  • Esma Cannon
    Esma Cannon
    Esma Ellen Charlotte Cannon was a diminutive Australian-born character actress, who moved to England in the early 1930s.-Career:...

     as Mrs. Warren
  • Marjorie Rhodes
    Marjorie Rhodes
    Marjorie Rhodes was a British actress.One of her best-known roles was as Lucy Fitton, the mother of Bill Naughton's northern comedy All in Good Time. She played the role on Broadway, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award in 1965...

     as Mrs. Scaife
  • Beatrice Varley
    Beatrice Varley
    Beatrice Varley was a British actress who appeared in a variety of television and film roles between 1936 and 1964...

     as Mrs. Jenkins
  • Roddy Hughes
    Roddy Hughes
    Roddy Hughes was a British film and television actor. He appeared in over 80 films between 1932 and 1961.-Selected filmography:* Say It With Flowers * Poison Pen * Saloon Bar...

     as Graphologist
  • Kenneth Connor
    Kenneth Connor
    Kenneth Connor MBE was an English comedy stage, radio, film and TV actor, best known for his appearances in the Carry On films.-Career:...

     as Post Office Boy
  • Megs Jenkins
    Megs Jenkins
    Muguette Mary "Megs" Jenkins was an English character actress who appeared in British films and television programmes.-Life and career:...

    as Barmaid


External links

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