''Seven Days Leave'' is a 1930 American

Pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

produced and directed by Richard Wallace and starring

Gary Cooper Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, silent screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, ...

, Beryl Mercer, and Daisy Belmore. The film is based on the 1918 play '' The Old Lady Shows Her Medals'' by J.M. Barrie. Produced by Louis D. Lighton and Richard Wallace for

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

, the film was released on January 25, 1930 in the United States.

Plot

A young Canadian soldier is wounded while fighting in World War I. While recovering from his wounds in London, a YMCA worker tells him that a Scottish widow without a son believes that he is in fact her son. To comfort the widow, the soldier agrees to pretend to be her Scottish son. After fighting with British sailors who make fun of his kilts, he wants to desert, but moved by his mother's patriotism he returns to the war front and is killed in battle. Later the proud Scottish widow receives the medals that her "son" was awarded for bravery.

Cast

as Kenneth * Beryl Mercer as Sarah Ann Dowey * Daisy Belmore as Emma Mickelham * Nora Cecil as Amelia Twymley *

Tempe Pigott Tempe Pigott (2 February 1869 – 6 October 1962) was an Australian silent and sound screen character actress. In the pre-film era she was a stage actress in England, Australia, Canada and the United States. She began appearing in motion pictures ...

as Mrs. Haggerty *

Arthur Hoyt Arthur Hoyt (March 19, 1874 – January 4, 1953) was an American film character actor who appeared in more than 275 films in his 34-year film career, about a third of them silent films. Career Born in Georgetown, Colorado, in 1874, Hoyt ma ...

as Mr. Willings * Arthur Metcalfe as Colonel *

Basil Radford Arthur Basil RadfordAdam Greaves, "Radford, (Arthur) Basil (1897–1952)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, May 201available online Retrieved 3 August 2020. (25 June 189720 October 1952) was an English chara ...

as Corporal * Larry Steers as Aide-de-Camp

Critical response

In his review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', critic

Mordaunt Hall Mordaunt Hall (1 November 1878 – 2 July 1973) was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for ''The New York Times'', working from October 1924 to September 1934. Hall credits the film's success to the direction of Richard Wallace and the performances of Beryl Mercer—reprising her role as the elderly charwoman in the original 1917 New York stage production—and the young Gary Cooper. Hall praised Wallace's realistic depictions of London and the charwomen, and noted the Paramount audience's response of laughter and applause to several scenes. Hall also described the screen adaptation by John Farrow and Dan Totheroh as "a capital piece of work in blending the Barrie lines with scenes that were left to the imagination in the play".

Production

The screenplay is based on the play '' The Old Lady Shows Her Medals'' by

J. M. Barrie Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, (; 9 May 1860 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several succe ...

, which premiered in New York on May 14, 1917.

References

External links