User Reviews

British drama of young lovers caught in a dastardly conundrum. Larry has committed a crime in self defense which because of circumstances would appear as murder to most. Add in Larry's reputation as a bit of a gadabout and trouble is brewing. When the pair try and leave the body to be discovered in settings that would lead to no blame being placed a tramp comes along and clouds the waters by removing an item from the body. Unwilling to come forward unnecessarily but equally unwilling to let an innocent man die they turn to his barrister brother and await the verdict which will take 21 days to be announced. On that pivot turns the tale.

Obscure film is one of only three co-starring vehicles for the famous Leigh/Olivier team, its an ordinary drama of note only for their participation. Made in '37 but not released until Vivien had made an enormous splash as Scarlett O'Hara, though she still has the more rounded appearance of her early English films. Olivier is at the very peak of his attractiveness.

British to its backbone this is worth catching up with but both the pair's other movies are better films.

It is hard to believe that Vivien Leigh made only a dozen more films after this and then it was the end. "21 Days" was filmed in 1937 but not released in the U.S until 1940 when the two stars (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh) were both taking the acting world by storm. If they hadn't, Olivier said "the movie would never have been released as we were both terrible in it"!! I don't think they were bad, there were just no sparks to show the world that they were really in love. Leslie Banks, on the other hand, was always excellent in everything he did and this part as Keith Durrant, Larry's successful brother, was no exception. He is the character you remember - all Larry and Vivien had to do was to gaze lovingly into each other's eyes, go on a shopping spree and try to spend the 21 days (the duration of the trial) as blissfully as possible ie there is a wonderful sequence of a happy day spent at Southend.

When scapegrace Larry accidentally kills a man, he turns to his brother for help. Keith is all for getting Larry out of the country for he is a successful barrister who is soon to be made a judge and doesn't want any skeletons coming out of the closet. The man Larry kills is the suddenly turned up husband of Wanda (Leigh), the girl he loves. Miss Leigh hardly looks old enough to have left school let alone have a husband in her dim dark past. A chance meeting with a philosophical beggar and Larry loses his gloves, the beggar picks them up and you can guess the rest in this quite predictable murder yarn.

The beggar is picked up and Keith leaves no stone unturned in his effort to keep Larry in the clear. Even though Vivien Leigh was top billed (I suppose it was released after her magnificent performance in "Gone With the Wind") she didn't have much to do. Robert Newton had a small role as the enthusiastic lawyer who is convinced his client, the beggar, who constantly repeats that on that particular night he lost his self respect, is not guilty. I think Alexander Korda planned to release it after "Fire Over England" (1937), to capitalize on the couple's sizzling romance which was almost becoming a scandal but realized it was nothing more than a quota quickie and so withdrew it until a better time.

This is a rather interesting tale of an accidental killing that turns both into a travesty of justice and battle of conscience for the one responsible for the killing.

Lovers Wanda (Vivien Leigh) and Larry (Laurence Olivier) are in the honeymoon phase of their love, when one night they enter Wanda's apartment and there is a guy who somewhat resembles Jabba the Hutt claiming to be Wanda's estranged husband and trying to put the squeeze on her - for money not affection. He's three times Larry's size, but when he gets physically aggressive Larry fights back and manages to get his hands around his neck. He only means to hold on until the man stops fighting, but unfortunately he does not stop fighting until he dies.

Why doesn't Larry call the police and explain things? This is never clear. Maybe he doesn't want Wanda embroiled in a scandal - carrying on with Larry when married to another although estranged. Maybe he believes he will not be believed. But then, maybe he is also worried for the reputation of his brother who has just been named a judge.

So Larry carries this huge man's body and tries to place it outside in such a way that he MIGHT be considered some homeless person who just died of exposure if the police are sloppy. Too bad, the police are not sloppy, and worse they arrest an ex-minister who has become a bum and who confesses to the police "he has lost his self respect" and "done a terrible thing". But that terrible thing was to steal some money and the ring of the dead man once he knew he was dead. No matter, the police arrest the minister, a guy with no known violent past, for killing somebody he obviously did not know.

Meanwhile, Larry has confessed all to his brother, who advises both he and Wanda burn all things showing that they have ties to each other and not see each other until this blows over. Apparently Larry's brother the judge doesn't have any faith in the British justice system either, or maybe he is just afraid of the scandal and his own career. He assures Larry the minister will never hang for something with such circumstantial evidence.

Well Larry shows up at the arraignment. In spite of the fact that it is obvious that the minister, if not innocent, is at least touched in the head, he is held over for trial in three weeks. Larry ignores his brother's advice to leave the country and avoid Wanda and says he will take his next quarter's allowance, spend frivolously on Wanda, enjoy their 21 days - the time to the trial - and then turn himself in.

This next part of the film, with Larry and Wanda basically having what amounts to a 21 day holiday, is the best part of the film. Not so much because of the plot or acting, but because you get a good look at England two years before WWII started, and it is interesting to look at the buildings and even amusement parks before the bombing gutted London. You could almost equate Larry and Wanda to pre-war England. They know possibly bad things are ahead in the near future, but in spite of that life carries on for them, for awhile anyways. Also notice that Larry has a good natured good hearted German landlord with whom he strikes up quite a friendship, protecting him from his skinflint Scottish wife. How weird this must have looked when it was released in 1940.

I just noticed a few more odd things. Larry is considered the wastrel of the family, but it is he who has a conscience both about a killing he did in self defense and the fate of a wrongly accused man. His brother, the honored judge, seems only interested in preserving the family name and his reputation. Yet he is the one sitting in judgment of others and has high social status.

I'd recommend it for a whole bunch of reasons that really have nothing to do with the plot, probably most of all a chance to see both Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh before they had great fame acting in a film together before Olivier's long drawn out divorce from Jill Esmond could be finalized and he and Vivien could be married.

Made in 1938 but shelved until 1940 when the two stars were captivating the world as Scarlett O'Hara and Heathcliff (Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, of course!) this is a very slight little film that is typical of the low-budget stuff producer Alexander Korda was churning out in Britain throughout the 1930's. Modest, inoffensive, rather stiffly acted and implausibly scripted, "21 Days" is decent enough entertainment and I guess a "must-see" if you are fans of the Oliviers. Larry plays Larry, the ne'er do well brother of an aspiring judge (Leslie Banks) who accidentally kills his girlfriend's (Vivien Leigh) husband. Olivier still wasn't that comfortable with the film medium and you can see it here, while Leigh doesn't have much to do except look very pretty and act concerned. Leigh and Olivier famously caught a US screening of this in 1940 and left halfway through and got roaring drunk because they thought it was that bad! Hmm, while it's often cited as the worst film Leigh was in, I prefer it a lot to the con-fuddled mess that is "Dark Journey".

What happens when you kill your lover's estranged husband? Three weeks to party during the trial of the wrongfully accused man before you fess up I guess. That's what happens when Larry (played by Laurence Olivier), gets into a tussle with the estranged husband of her lover Wanda (played by Vivien Leigh) and ends up killing him in self defense after the husband pulls out a knife. Worried that his status as a homewrecker would prejudice a jury against him, he stashes the body in an alley hoping that the murder will be deemed unsolvable. When a homeless man he meets on the way back is given his gloves, the police finger him for the murder. Larry becomes torn between the ensuing guilt and wanting to continue his relationship with Wanda. Encouraging him to let the homeless man take the fall is his attorney brother Keith, (played by Leslie Banks) who doesn't want a family scandal interfering with his plans to become a judge. While the moral quandry is played out over the average 21 days that the trial is estimated to take, Larry and Wanda decide to live their lives to the fullest in London until Larry reluctantly swoops in at the last minute to save the man before he goes to jail and take his place. Kind of a queasy concept, although it is worth the watch to see an early Vivien Leigh, who filmed the movie three years earlier than the release date in 1940. She looks radiant in every scene and is worth the price of admission just to watch her do her thing, even if it is a supporting role to Olivier. As other reviewers have stated, Olivier unfortunately is not quite used to the differences in movie acting versus stage acting yet, and tends to shout his lines and overemote as if he's projecting to the back row. The plot is serving to it's 72 minute runtime, as I didn't really feel cheated that it ended soon. It didn't need to be longer. The movie is mostly the two of them going on dates until the final decision is made. Not a bad movie but Olivier and Leigh definitely have their best work ahead of them.

SPOILERS ahead... 21 Days... known as 21 Days Together in the U.S., is a brit production, from Columbia. according to the trivia, this was actually made before Vivien Leigh made Gone with the Wind; Laurence Olivier was best known for Wuthering Heights and Rebecca (Rebecca is awesome!). which also explains why there's no talk of war yet. In the story, Larry is going with Wanda, but it turns out she's married. and the husband turns up demanding money. they tussle in Wanda's apartment, and now the husband is dead. the coppers arrest someone for the moidah, so wanda and Larry agree that if they find the innocent guy guilty in court, Larry will step forward and confess. like an episode of Three's Company, everything get fouled up, misunderstandings ensue. at one point, Larry even wonders if he should give himself up. clearly, he should have. but people just don't seem to do the right thing in the heat of the moment. so it's hard to feel any sympathy for him. but maybe that awkwardness or mixed emotions is what the author (John Galsworthy) wanted us to feel. so Larry goes to his brother (Leslie Banks), and they come up with a plan. as the weeks play out, we see what happens to Larry and his brother. i personally thought it was quite unlikely that Larry and Wanda would go to the amusement park while all this was going on. it pretty good, has a couple shortcomings. Directed by Basil Dean. didn't direct anything too famous, but was better known for writing, and for starting production companies.

Based on the 1919 play "The First and the Last" by John Galsworthy, this is a limp and unconvincing romantic thriller. The second of only three films that Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh made together, it was filmed in 1937 but not released for almost three years, by which time its two stars had made names for themselves in Hollywood. Olivier later said that he believed that the film may never have been released otherwise as it was so dreadful and he and the future Lady Olivier were so dreadful in it. While I would not go quite that far, I don't think that anyone involved gave it pride of place on their CV. It is certainly my least favourite of the Olivier films that I have seen. It is badly written by Basil Dean and Graham Greene (even Homer nods) and the former's direction leaves a great deal to be desired.

The film concerns Larry Durrant, the ne'er-do-well younger brother of the prominent barrister Keith Durrant who is soon to be appointed to the bench, and his lover Wanda. On April 21, 1938, Larry and Wanda return home from a romantic trip to the pawnbroker's and find that her husband Henry Wallen, whom she hasn't seen in three years, is waiting for them in her flat. Henry threatens to kill Wanda and Larry accidentally kills him. He later places his body in an archway not far from Wanda's house. Fearing the shadow that it will cast on his legal career, Keith advises Larry not to tell the police, even after a harmless vagrant named John Evan is arrested and charged with murder. In spite of the very circumstantial evidence, Evan is remanded for trial in three weeks.

After learning that Henry was a bigamist, Larry and Wanda get married and try to fit 30 years into 21 days. Larry has decided that he will come forward if Evan is convicted but not if he is acquitted. As it turns out, Evan is convicted and sentenced to death - after a one day trial, mind you - but dies that very night so Larry is off the hook. This is supposed to be a happy ending but it isn't as a wrongly convicted man has died, probably due to stress, and his name will never be cleared. This happens so that two dippy characters can live happily ever after. Considering Larry acted in self-defence, one would hope that this justification would be successful in court and he would be found not guilty so there is a very good chance that they could have lived happily ever after even if he had done the right thing. However, they would rather a very nice and, far more importantly, innocent man be considered a murderer.

Olivier's performance as Larry (which is what he liked to be called in preference to Sir Laurence or Lord Olivier in later life) is not one of his best but it is nevertheless the best in the film. He makes the film and its flawed, poorly thought-out plot all the more bearable as I couldn't help but pay attention to his great skill as an actor whenever he was on screen. Leigh was a fantastic actress but not in this film. She has a thankless role as Wanda but she plays it dreadfully. In many cases, she fails to even deliver lines in a convincing fashion, which shocked me. She was excellent in "Fire Over England" which she and Olivier made shortly beforehand so I don't know what happened here. Leslie Banks is good as the morally dubious Keith - well, the more morally dubious Keith - but the best supporting performance comes from Hay Petrie as the unfortunate Evan. It also features nice small appearances from Robert Newton and William Dewhurst (who died over two years before the film was released). Banks and Newton likewise appeared in "Fire Over England" and Olivier later cast them in his version of "Henry V", incidentally.

Overall, this is a very bad film which does not make a great deal of sense if you think about it but Olivier saves it from being a complete disaster. Still, it is one of my least favourite films of the year.

Made in 1937 but having it released held back for several years.

It would be hard to discern from this movie. The male lead Laurence Olivier would be regarded as one of the greatest actors on stage and a ten time Oscar nominee for acting. That the female lead Vivien Leigh will be a two time Oscar winner.

It goes to show in Olivier's case just how much he bucked up his screen acting skills. By 1939 he was in Hollywood making Wuthering Heights.

In 21 Days, Olivier plays Larry, a roguish brother of a barrister Keith Durrant (Leslie Banks) who is about to be appointed as a judge.

Larry has been involved with his lover Wanda (Vivien Leigh.) However her estranged husband Henry shows up demanding money and Larry accidentally kills him in self defence after a struggle.

Larry stows Henry's dead body an abandoned archway at night. The police arrest a former priest who has fallen on hard times who is sent to trial for murder.

When Keith is consulted by his brother, he tells Larry to keep quiet and leave the country.

The guilt of an innocent man taking the fall for him is too much to bear for Larry. He plans to spend 21 idyllic days with Wanda and then hand himself in.

21 Days is a fairly incoherent story. A part of the last segment is spent with Larry and Wanda in a fairground. The acting is somewhat weak as is the production standards. The cop out ending makes me question just how it managed to get past the Hays code in the USA.

It is better seen as a curiosity and the development of two of its stars in the early days of their screen careers.

In the tragic romantic suspense thriller "21 Days Together," co-stars Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh are a young couple who get away with a crime that the authorities treat as murder after a self-confessed suspect eagerly takes credit for the offense. Adapting the classic John Galsworthy short play "The First and the Last," "Constant Nymph" director Basil Dean and noted novelist Graham Greene have generated a gripping, top-notch, nail-biter that could only have been produced in the United Kingdom owing to the moral improprieties of the film. At the very least, under Hollywood's insurmountable Production Code Administration, this starry-eyed couple would have faced manslaughter charges, and the man who claimed that he committed the transgression would never have received a death sentence. Indeed, "21 Days Together" boasts three major twists, so if you haven't seen this tantalizing tale, prepare yourself for something entirely different. Moreover, cease from reading this analysis now! The forthcoming revelations in the second paragraph will sabotage the suspense if you blunder ahead. Olivier and Leigh make a charismatic couple that you will have you shedding a tempest of tears until fade-out. Leslie Banks delivers a strong performance as Olivier's smarter brother who not only takes their best interests but also his selfish interests to heart. While they might not have known better in the heat of the incident, he has no excuse for his incorrigible actions to shield them from exposure.

Neither Larry Durrant (Laurence Olivier of "Wuthering Heights") nor Wanda (Vivien Leigh of "Gentlemen's Agreement") are ever questioned about the murder of a sleazy individual who tries to blackmail them. Actually, this foreign dastard had married our heroine some years before when Wanda was starving on the streets of Paris and would have consented to anything. According to Wanda, their marriage lasted barely a week. Nevertheless, Henry Wallen (Esme Percy of "Pygmalion") awaits them as they return to Wanda's London flat, and they refused to capitulate to Wallen's blackmail demands. A violent hand-to-hand struggle with Larry and Wallen ensues after the latter brandishes a knife. Wanda doesn't stand by idly but participates at some point in the brawl. During the commotion, Wallen falls and fatally smashes his head on the bricks of a fireplace. Fearing the worst for their future, Larry and Wanda decide to dispose of the corpse without informing the law. Stealthily, Larry places the corpse inconspicuously in Glove Lane in an empty archway when nobody is present. Immediately, the remorseful Larry visits his older, wiser brother, Keith (Leslie Banks of "The Most Dangerous Game"), and explains his hopeless predicament. Keith is a prominent barrister, and his name has been touted in the press as the ideal candidate for a judgeship. He realizes only too well what may happen to his own prestige if his brother is arrested and put on trial. Comparably, Larry is the black sheep of the Durrant clan, and everything that he tries his hand at ends horribly in disaster. Not only should Larry book passage on a ship and leave the country, but Keith also urges him to never see Wanda again! Predictably, the forlorn Larry can do neither.

Later, Larry encounters a former clergyman, John Aloysius Evan (Hay Petrie of "The Red Shoes"), outside of a pawn shop. The woebegone clergyman has been reduced to the ignominy of begging, but he doesn't plead for money from Larry. Instead, Evan is in search for self-respect. The only way to attain a state of such nirvana, he claims with vigor is to suffer presumably as Christ suffered. Larry tells him about his unfortunate accident with Wallen. When the authorities conduct their investigation, they encounter Evan, and former cleric confesses to the crime. Furthermore, Evan has the incriminating gloves that Larry wore during the fight. As it turns out, Larry dropped these gloves after he chatted with Evan and then walked away from him. Mind you, Dean and Greene pull a fast one at the last moment to exonerate our hero and heroine. The clergyman is convicted of the murder, but Larry's conscience refuses to let him rest until he clears poor Evan. Evan dies on the way to his hanging, and Larry and Wanda are allowed to live happily ever after. It isn't so much that they get away with a crime, which they should have come forth and reported to the authorities, but Larry's shrewd brother Keith is as guilty as they are. Now, Keith finds himself in the limelight because he is poised to be elevated to a high spot in British jurisprudence. Keith goes out onto a limb to help his wayward brother and Wanda. The Production Code would have demanded punishment for Keith's incorrigible behavior as well as that of Larry and Wanda. Just as our protagonists should have admitted their roles in the death of the blackmailer, Keith should have notified the authorities without hesitation about his brother's misfortune. Meanwhile, Keith volunteers to help with the clergyman's defense, and he advises Evan's attorney, Tolley (Robert Newton of "Treasure Island") on ways to ensure that his client doesn't receive a death sentence. Again, the determined clergyman derails the best efforts of his defense team.

"21 Days Together" draws its title from the number days between Evan's arrest until his conviction. Keith does his level best to separate Larry and Wanda. Eventually, he realizes that these two are inextricably bound together by fate. Our hero and heroine celebrate as if their lives are destined to end after those 21 days. The guilty and grief-stricken Larry knows deep in his soul he cannot flee and let another man pay for his sins with his life. The last minute reversal is devastating and reflects how Hollywood and the British Film industry differed in their depiction of morality. "21 Days Together" is a memorable movie. Clearly, the subject matter alarmed producer Alexander Korda, and he shelved the film for two years before he released it.

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.

Hard - make that impossible - to believe that Graham Greene took a screenplay credit on this piece of cheese instead of selling everything he owned to buy his way out of it. Even Robert Newton can't save it (though presumably some bonding went on because both Newton and Leslie Banks later appeared in Oliviers' Henry V). The only word for this is dire - at least the only word that won't be censored and I doubt if anyone concerned would want to display it on their CV. Released in 1940 to cash in on Gone With The Wind it was actually shot in 1937 and feels like n end-of-term production at a third-rate Drama school.