The Faithful Heart

Herbert Marshall leaves his ship and hits a pub. He's a boastful young man, and tells the striking barmaid, Edna Best, that he was a fourth mate a year ago, and he'll be a skipper soon enough. The two rag each other, and fall in love. But orders come in, to take over as Second Mate on a ship around South Africa, so she sends him off, each saying they'll never forget each other.

Twenty years pass, and Marshall is getting his Victoria Cross, and visiting his fiancee, Anne Grey. Her father is rich, but Marshall is determined to stand on his own feet, and Miss Grey cannily understands that the man she loves can be a great man. But one day in his office, in walks a girl. She's Edna Best, playing her own daughter....by Marshall.

It's a little stiff at times, and the sound work is still a trifle primitive, but it's a sweet little movie directed by Victor Saville, with a lot of talent in the writing department: Lajos Biró, Monckton Hoffe, Angus MacPhail, and Robert Stevenson. It's also helped bythe fact that Marshall and Miss Best play their roles with a warm intimacy; they were married at the time.