Review

  • Quirky little romantic drama about a sailor (Herbert Marshall) who pursues a barmaid (Edna Best) while on leave. They fall in love, but he's called up to ship out to South Africa. He goes away, vowing to become a success and return. He never does. Story skips ahead 20 years to find Marshall a war hero (the Boer War) and being decorated by the Queen. He's on the verge of marrying a snooty woman (Anne Grey) when he's called upon by a young woman (Best again) who turns out to be his daughter. She's a dead ringer for the girl he loved all those years ago. He learns that the mother died in child birth and that the young woman is all alone in the world. He's torn between his soon-to-be wife and his newfound daughter. But the bride wants nothing to do with this grown-up daughter and plots to ship her to a distant relative in Canada and even gives her the passage money. Marshall is forced to make a decision.

    This is one of Edna Best's best performances. She very good at making the two characters very different. Herbert Marshall is also quite good as the randy seaman and his older self. Grey is suitably nasty. Others in the cast include Mignon O'Doherty as Miss Gattiscombe, Laurence Hanray as the Major, Athole Stewart as Sir Gilbert, and Griffith Jones as the art lover at a party.