Sporting Love (1936)

Tagline: "Calling All Stars"

Writer: Stanley Lupino (play), Ingram D'Abbes, Fenn Sherie
Starring: Stanley Lupino, Laddie Cliff, Lu Ann Meredith

Featured Racecourse: Epsom

Director: J. Elder Wills
Producer: Henry Passmore
Writers: Stanley Lupino (play), Ingram D'Abbes, Fenn Sherie

Release Date: May 1936
Runtime: 46 mins (B&W)

IMDB Synopsis: Farce of two brothers in a continual trough of financial depression.

Where to Buy: My Rare Films
Film Links: IMDB, BFI, Wikipedia

Personal Review

Brothers Peter (Laddie Cliff) and Percy Brace (Stanley Lupino) are in financial trouble and if they don’t Pay back their loan to Gerald Dane (Bobbie Comber) by 14:30 on Derby Day he is going to foreclose on them. They have placed large bets on their own horse Moonbeam to win the Derby and ask Dane for some more time but he refuses as he is dead against gambling and also hates the fact that his daughter Maude (Eda Peel) is in love with Peter.

The brothers turn to their Aunt Fanny (Clarissa Selwynne) who has promised them money when they both marry so they each send her a telegram stating that they done just that; Peter to Maude and Percy to an American guest Nellie Gray (Lu Ann Meredith) who is already betrothed to another. Aunt Fanny soon finds out that she has been deceived but she agrees to help her nephews by writing them out a £4000 cheque - Lord Dimsdale (Henry Carlisle) who had earlier been duped by the brothers also offers his services.

The brothers kidnap their horse from Dane’s stables and Lord Dimsdale agrees to take it Epsom but just before the race they discover that Dane has double crossed them and replaced Moonbeam with an imposter. Percy rushes to the nearest bank and cashes in Aunty Fanny’s £4000 cheque but back at the course he is robbed by a mob who think he is a welsher. The brothers then receive a hot tip for Cold Hen in the Derby so just before the off Percy calls his bookmaker who agrees to switch his bet from Moonbeam, only Percy forgets the name of the tip and backs another horse, Winter Bottom, by mistake. The brothers suspect that Cold Hen has won and knowing that Percy has backed the wrong horse they set off and discuss starting a new life far away, only for their coach driver to reveal that Winter Bottom actually won the Derby at 100/8 leading to celebrations all round.   


Sporting Love was filmed at Beaconsfield Studios by Hammer Productions and was based on Stanley Lupino’s play of the same name which had enjoyed a successful run at the London Gaiety theatre in 1934. At only 46 minutes long this was one of the many ‘quota quickies’ filmed in the 1930s which were bargain basement offerings rattled off the production line to promote the Empire’s interests abroad and compete against the deluge of films from Hollywood. This fact is clearly evident in Sporting Love which had a very disjointed plot, shoddy camera work and dreadful editing throughout although it has to be said the DVD copy I acquired was fairly poor.

This film is billed as a musical comedy but it only contained three basic songs accompanied with some tap-dancing and although there were plenty of gags and slapstick, Lupino and Cliff came across more as the Chuckle Brothers rather than Flanagan and Allen. The love interests Eda Peel and Lu Ann Meredith didn’t really get a chance to show their true beauty and perhaps Clarissa Selwynne in her role as Aunt Fanny just stole the limelight.

The highlight for me was the opening sequence at Epsom racecourse where a narrator states; “Epsom downs, the home of the Derby, the greatest event in the world, known to most as the sport of kings and to everybody else as a mugs game, it’s a mugs game.” He then goes onto introduce each of the characters and their current situation which then saves the need for any subsequent development. All of the racecourse scenes were filmed in a studio interspersed with stock footage from Espom, although it appears not to be a previous Derby race itself.

The Monthly Film Bulletin (November 1936) said of Sporting Love, “in no respect is the film polished, but it’s rollicking good humour and pace are sufficient compensation in a farce of this kind”. I would have just used the word farce! (Rating 1/10)

Favourite Quotes
Lord Dimsdale: Don't insult me, I'm a peer."
Gerald Dane: "I don't care if you're a jetty!"

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