The Shop at Sly Corner (Blu-ray review)

• Reviewed by: Stuart Galbraith IV
• Review date: 14 August 2024
• Format: Blu-ray Disc

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review

The shop at Sly Corner (1947), meaninglessly renamed Scotland Yard Code is a disappointing British crime drama for its initial US release, based on a popular play of the same name by Conservative MP Edward Percy. The film has good production values ​​and several decent actors, but the story is sentimental and obvious, bordering on cruelty and sadism, and is very predictable and obvious in other respects. It’s more like a spruced-up version of the kind of B-movies of the ’30s and early ’40s in which Boris Karloff played a sympathetic, grandfatherly criminal or rogue scientist. Not surprisingly, Karloff himself starred in a short-lived Broadway production of the play in 1949.

In the film version, Oskar Homolka plays the wealthy French (but Viennese-accented) antique dealer Descius Heiss, a widowed man with a walrus beard who eternally idolizes his daughter, a violin virtuoso, Margaret (Muriel Pavlow). Although he appears to be very wealthy thanks to his thriving shop, he also works as a fence with his long-time criminal partner Corder Morris (Manning Whiley). He is getting old and tired, and Margaret is about to break through as a soloist. Heiss, a secret refugee from Devil’s Island (!) with the scars to prove it, tells Corder that he wants to give up the fencing business. Unfortunately, Heiss’ slimy salesman Archie Fellows (Kenneth Griffith) overhears everything and starts blackmailing his boss, swindling him for almost everything he has over many months. Heiss offers a large severance package on the condition that Archie moves to Canada. But the bloodsucker Archie is insatiable and demands a partnership with the store and Margaret’s hand in marriage, even though she is already engaged to Robert Graham (Derek Farr).

Although Hone has produced Glendinning well, with its inky black-and-white camerawork, it is one of those scripts in which a basically decent man and devoted father is put to the test. (Spoiler) After suffering lashings and worse on Devil’s Island, he builds a new life for himself in England, his sideline as a fence seemingly redundant given the prosperity of the antique shop. Archie is an obvious jerk from the start: in an early scene he tries to persuade a desperate granny (Katie Johnson from The Ladykillers) in the hope of selling her music box; Heiss stands up for her, but inexplicably does not fire Archie for his dishonesty (and probable attempted theft). Archie’s blackmail knows no bounds; he is a total creep and when he crosses the line and demands Margaret’s hand And Heiss also gets fed up with the antique shop and strangles him. No doubt the British public in 1947 cheered wildly when Heiss finally killed this devious Welshman, and even Margaret’s boyfriend Robert later admits that he would have liked to kill him too. But in those conservative times, there was no way the British film censorship board would have let Heiss get away with it, nor would Hollywood’s production code.

(More spoilers) The script is incredibly obvious in this regard. In an early scene, Robert returns to England from abroad, bringing with him various exotic items, including a South Sea blowgun with a set of poison darts still soaked in deadly poison. Aside from the obvious liability issues of selling deadly darts, the film awkwardly but relentlessly references the poison darts over and over again (“I see you haven’t sold them yet!”), so often that the viewer knows they will be used at some point.

In his better-known later career, Oskar Homolka tended to overact, as if he were doing an over-the-top Oskar Homolka impersonation. His theatrical instincts are more under control here, still broad at times, almost cuddly, but believable. Once Scotland Yard intervenes – their “code” never comes into the plot – Heiss deflects suspicion with his warm, friendly manner. Kenneth Griffith is credited as “and introduction,” although he had appeared in at least eight films before the film. The shop at Sly Corner; it undoubtedly gave his career a boost, as he portrays a particularly nasty villain.

Katie Johnson is joined by other familiar faces, including Kathleen Harrison as a cockney servant (of course), Irene Handl as an agitated witness and Diana Dors in her film debut as Archie’s materialistic girlfriend. Dors, who keeps her age secret, was incredibly just 15 at the time. Like their characters, Muriel Pavlow and Derek Farr married shortly after filming, a bond that lasted until his death in 1986.

A 4K restoration, the Indicator/Powerhouse Films region-free Blu-ray release of The shop at Sly Corner is another impressive release in standard 1.37:1 black and white, with remarkably deep blacks and excellent contrast. The LPCM monotone is supported by optional English subtitles.

Supplements include a new audio commentary by film historian Josephine Botting and critic Phuong Le; Jonathan Rigby on Oscar Homolka; Muriel Pavlov in conversationan entertaining and approximately 48-minute long interview with the actress from 2009, which gives an overview of her career. (Pavlow died in 2019 at the age of 97; her co-actress Kathleen Harrison was 103 years old.) A picture gallery rounds off the CD’s features.

We received only a check CD for this review. The booklet included with the final release includes a new essay by Steve Chibnall, archived interviews and articles, contemporary reviews and film credits.

Not nearly as good as Powerhouse’s simultaneous release of the far better obsession, The shop at Sly Corner isn’t terrible, but its interesting qualities are undermined by sloppy sentimentality, predictability, and major plot holes.

– Stuart Galbraith IV