AllMovie

Ebullient British music-hall entertainer Walter Forde directed and starred in a series of popular slapstick comedies of the silent era. Forde spent two years in Hollywood before returning to England in 1925, where he gradually cut down on his screen appearances to concentrate on directing. Some of Forde's best-loved films of the 1930s were his Jack Buchanan vehicles, which in the Harold Lloyd tradition combined laughs with genuine thrills. Sometimes Forde eschewed comedy altogether, turning out several swiftly paced adventure films and melodramas, including the internationally successful Rome Express (1932). Of Ford's wartime releases, the 1942 Tommy Handley starrer It's That Man Again was both the best and the best received. Walter Forde's last directorial effort was 1949's Cardboard Cavalier, an elaborate costume spoof starring Sid Field; he retired to Los Angeles, where he died in 1984.