Hotel Splendide

Jerry Mason inherits the Hotel Splendide at Speymouth but is disappointed when he sees it is a quiet place with few permanent residents. Gentleman Charlie, a jewel thief arrives after a long spell in prison expecting to be able to dig up the pearls he had buried - only to find the hotel has been built on the site.

This is quite a fun short feature from Michael Powell that sees clerk "Jerry" (Jerry Verno) come into an inheritance. It's not quite what he was expecting after he rather unceremoniously hands in his notice to his boss, indeed when he arrives at the eponymous establishment he discovers it's pretty much on it's last legs. Not to be outdone, though, he revamps and relaunches the hotel to a fanfare and a full house - but are the guests there for the hospitality or for some much more nefarious reason? The latter soon becomes evident as the hotel is reputedly the resting place of the famous Dysart Pearls - pinched decades earlier. Can "Jerry" collect the £10,000 reward or will one of his motley collection of guests beat him to the prize? There's a lovely scene towards the end when they are all traipsing up the stairs, nobody sure who can be trusted and who cannot and the ending, well I quite liked the simplicity of that. It's all a bit basic, the production and dialogue really don't give any signals as to things to come from Powell - but it's short, sweet and really quite enjoyable for an hour.