donaldkingdarkenergy Review of 21 Days Together

21 Days Together (1940)

Terrible sound, even worse subtitles, but worth watching for Olivier/Leigh fans

[3/10 · 8 June 2021]

Another reviewer complains about the poor sound. I've just watched it on TalkingPics - there were subtitles on my TV, but they were wrong at a crucial point. According to the subtitles, the Scottish landlady exclaims, 'That murderer has escaped the hangman. He's back on the way to jail.' I looked up the film on Wikipedia, and discovered that the so-called murderer had in fact had a heart attack on the way back to jail. I returned to the film, and turned the volume up as far as it could go, and realised that the landlady had actually said 'He's died on the way back to jail.' Laurence Olivier should have done the decent thing, and gone to the police straight away. Then he would have been convicted of manslaughter. He should have ignored his brother, who seemed to think that Olivier's appearance in court would put his advancement to a judgeship in a bad light. Stupid.