The Green Goddess (1930)

I was frankly rather disappointed with this. George Arliss is the scheming "Raja" who manages to capitalise on an aeroplane crash that delivers three British citizens into his hands just as the fate of three of his siblings is about to be settled in neighbouring India. His subjects believe that it was the hand of the benevolent "Green Goddess" who has delivered this opportunity for retribution to their Raja, so our threesome begin to look doomed - unless they can use the radio to summon help. It's a very stage bound presentation, this, and Arliss - usually quite good as the menacing, plotting baddie, is distinctly off-form. The production is really rather basic - not so much the technology (though the sound appears to have been recorded in a tin bucket) but just in the limiting aspirations of director Alfred Green. The film is just all a bit flat, for what seems like quite a long 75 minutes, and the ending is somewhat of a let down. Pity - could have been fun!