The Crooked Billet

This article is about the films. For the area in south west London, England, see Crooked Billet. For the American Revolutionary War battle, see Battle of Crooked Billet.

The Crooked Billet
Directed byAdrian Brunel
Written byAngus MacPhail
Produced byMichael Balcon
StarringMadeleine Carroll
Carlyle Blackwell
Miles Mander
Gordon Harker
CinematographyClaude L. McDonnell
Music byLouis Levy
Production
company
Distributed byWoolf & Freedman Film Service
Release date
  • May 1929 (1929-05)
Running time
82 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguagesSound Part-Talkie
English Intertitles

The Crooked Billet is a 1929 British sound part-talkie drama film directed by Adrian Brunel and starring Madeleine Carroll, Carlyle Blackwell and Miles Mander.[1] It was released in both silent and sound versions, as its production came as the industry was shifting over.[2] It was made by Gainsborough Pictures at their Islington Studios. The sound version features some sequences with audible dialogue. The rest of the film featured English intertitles with a synchronized musical score and sound effects.

It was one of the first films to use RCA's synchronized sound system for dialogue.[3]

The plot has been summarized as: "An international spy searches for lost documents hidden in an old inn."[4]

It is listed on the British Film Institute's 75 Most Wanted list of lost films.[4] The film surfaced in France in December 2021 but the BFI refused to pay the asking price, so the only known 16mm copy is owned by a French individual.

  1. ^ "The Crooked Billet". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 14 January 2009. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
  2. ^ Burton, Alan (4 April 2016). Historical Dictionary of British Spy Fiction. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442255869.
  3. ^ Low, Rachael, Editor (2013). History of British Film 1918 – 1929. Vol. 4. Routledge. pp. 170, 205, 352. ISBN 9781136206405. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help); |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ a b "The Crooked Billet / BFI Most Wanted". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 3 August 2012. Retrieved 25 May 2014.