Lloyd's of London | |
---|---|
Directed by | Henry King |
Produced by |
Darryl F. Zanuck Kenneth Macgowan |
Written by | Walter Ferris Curtis Kenyon Ernest Pascal |
Starring |
Freddie Bartholomew Madeleine Carroll Guy Standing Tyrone Power |
Music by | R.H. Bassett David Buttolph Cyril J. Mockridge |
Cinematography | Bert Glennon |
Edited by | Barbara McLean |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date
|
November 25, 1936 |
Running time
|
115 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $850,000 |
Box office | $2 million |
Lloyd's of London is a 1936 American drama film directed by Henry King. It stars Tyrone Power, Madeleine Carroll, and Guy Standing. The supporting cast includes Freddie Bartholomew, George Sanders, Virginia Field, and C. Aubrey Smith. Loosely based on historical events, the film follows the dealings of a man who works for Lloyd's of London during the Napoleonic Wars. Lloyd's of London was a hit; it demonstrated that 23-year-old Tyrone Power, in his first starring role, could carry a film, and that the newly formed 20th Century Fox was a major Hollywood studio.
On the last day of 1770, youngster Jonathan Blake (Freddie Bartholomew) overhears two sailors discussing something suspicious in his aunt's ale-house in a Norfolk fishing village. He persuades his more respectable best friend, Horatio Nelson (Douglas Scott), to sneak aboard the sailors' ship with him. They overhear a plot involving insurance fraud. When Jonathan decides to warn the insurers, Horatio cannot accompany him, because that same day he is invited to join the Royal Navy as a midshipman. Jonathan walks all the way to London to Lloyd's Coffee House, where the insurers conduct their business. Mr. Angerstein (Guy Standing), the head of one of the syndicates that make up Lloyd's of London, listens to him. Instead of a monetary reward, Jonathan asks to work at Lloyd's as a waiter. Angerstein teaches him that news, "honestly acquired and honestly shared," is the lifeblood of the insurance industry.