A Leek in a Land of Dragons

The Phantom Light (1935)
directed by Michael Powell
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

"This Wales is another world, where the locals speak either an impenetrable language of their own, or English in the harsh cadences of some ancient epic poetry; where the talk still runs to fairies and spectral presences; where the residents battle the natural elements that yield their livelihood."

Dave Kehr, New York Times, September 29, 2008

Sometimes a tossed-off paycheck is just this month's rent, even if, as it did with Powell, Wales eventually became everything Kehr says it is. But The Phantom Light is as tepid as The Ghost Train, or any of a hundred cockney vaudeville routines masquerading as eerie, foggy British mystery. Only in England in 1935 would the lead actress be thirty-six years old; Binnie Hale, that year's "blonde on the rocks," cuts up the lighthouse keeper's best pair of Sunday trousers to sashay around in, and for all the world looks like someone's mom in shorts, calling everyone in for lunch at the beach on summer vacation.