Posted: Sat., Dec. 31, 1927, 11:00pm PT

The Constant Nymph

(UK)

By Variety Staff

Gainsborough. Director Adrian Brunel; Producer Basil Dean; Screenplay Adrian Brunel, Alma Reville, Margaret Kennedy; Camera Dave Gobbett

Mabel Poulton Ivor Novello George Heinrich Dorothy Boyd Frances Dable

That Basil Dean's name is attached to The Constant Nym; Camera and Gainsborough as the producing firm cannot alter the facts. The English are so slow in their picture making. No lighting, no camerawork, nothing; just a dull passing through a series of slow scenes.

Story [from the novel by Margaret Kennedy and the play with Basil Dean] is of a hoydenish group, children of a great composer who dies in his studio in the Austrian Tyrol. Later his most hoydenish daughter also dies. In between the picture dies.

All of the charm of a tale of this kind has been spoiled. No attraction is left. If not the direction, it is the photography, and if neither, then the actors, excepting Ivor Novello. Mabel Poulton as Tessa, the little hoyden, who should look about 15, looks often 25, and again 35. Frances Dable gives an even performance as Florence, but it is wasted in the rabble.

Silent. (B&W) Extract of a review from 1928. Running time: 80 MIN.