Seven Days Leave
About Seven Days Leave
Canadian soldier Kenneth, wounded in the war, is told in a London hospital that a Scottish widow, Sarah Ann Dowey, has been claiming him as the son she does not have. He agrees to play the part. After a fight with sailors who mock his kilt, he nearly deserts. Her patriotism sends him back. He is killed, and she later receives the medals awarded to her supposed son.
Cast & crew
More about Seven Days Leave
Richard Wallace produced and directed it for Paramount, with Louis D. Lighton. John Farrow and Dan Totheroh adapted J. M. Barrie's 1917 play The Old Lady Shows Her Medals. Richard H. Digges Jr. wrote titles. Charles Lang photographed it. It opened in the United States on 25 January 1930 and runs 80 minutes, nine reels, 7,534 feet.
Themes
Background
A 1930 Paramount adaptation of a Barrie play about a woman who invents a son at the front.
Making
Mercer repeated her stage part. Wallace staged the charwomen's rooms and the London streets around her.
Reviews
Mordaunt Hall, in The New York Times, called it a sensitive production and praised Mercer and Cooper. He wrote that Farrow and Totheroh had joined Barrie's lines to scenes the play had left offstage.
Look
Charles Lang photographed the London rooms and the hospital.
Music
It is a talkie, with Barrie's dialogue adapted by John Farrow and Dan Totheroh.
Notes
- Gary Cooper plays Kenneth. Beryl Mercer plays Sarah Ann Dowey, the role she had played in the 1917 New York production of the play.
- Daisy Belmore, Nora Cecil, Tempe Pigott, Arthur Hoyt, and Basil Radford are in the supporting cast.
- Mordaunt Hall's New York Times review credits the audience at the Paramount with laughter and applause.
Scenes
- Kenneth agrees to stand in as Sarah Ann's son.
- Sailors mock the kilt and he fights them.
- The widow is given the medals after he is killed.
Influenced by
- The Old Lady Shows Her Medals (1917 play)
