No good deed goes unpunished.              Schoolboy Roddy Berwick (Ivor Novello) takes the blame for a theft committed by his close friend, Tim.   Soon his life goes straight Downhill.  He is expelled from school, rejected by his wealthy family, and shunned by his former friends.  He flees to seamy side of Paris, then to the docks of Marseilles where he embarks on a self-imposed exile in the Colonies.          Roddy eventually returns to England and a happy ending that seems too contrived by half.          The story is from a play by lead actor Novello, star of The Lodger and a genuine matinee idol of the day.  Look for an innovative dream sequence and other visual prodigy by the young Alfred Hitchcock.

Production: Michael Balcon, Gainsborough, 1927, GB Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Scenario: Eliot Stannard, from the play by Ivor Novello and Constance Collier, written under the pseudonym of David Lestrange. Director of Photography: Claude McDonnell. Editing: Ivor Montagu. Studio: Islington. Distributors: Wardour & F., 1928, 6,500 feet; USA, World Wide Dist., 1928. Principal Actors: Ivor Novello (Roddy Berwick), Ben Webster (Doctor Dowson), Robin Irvine (Tim Wakely), Sybil Rhoda (Sybil Wakely), Lillian Braithwaite (Lady Berwick) and Hannah Jones, Violet Farebrother, Isabel Jeans, Norman McKinnel, Jerrold Robertshaw, Annette Benson, Ian Hunter, Barbara Gott, Alfred Goddard. (US release title: When Boys Leave Home.)

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