Michael Powell's quota quickie period is a mixed bag overall with a lot riding on quickly written scripts as he made about five films a year. All feature length, these were testaments to work ethic more than anything else, and what's interesting to watch across the first few years of Powell's career is how increasingly sophisticated the physical productions are getting with time. The Phantom Light had some very nice sound design choices, and here, in Her Last Affaire, Powell shows an increasing command of the visual aspect, especially in terms of set design. It also helps that the script is actually pretty decent, a mystery that gets wrapped up in a dangerous situation, hanging on by a solid, likeable lead we can root for.
Alan Herriot (Hugh Williams) is secretary to Sir Julian (Francis L. Sullivan). Son of a traitor who died in prison, Alan has fallen in love with Sir Julian's daughter Judy (Sophie Stewart) while Sir Julian's wife, Lady Avril (Viola Keats) is being told by her doctor to lessen the excitement in her life for the good of her heart. Alan gets sent to Paris to do some business for Sir Julian in the runup to Sir Julian's efforts to become a cabinet minister, but Alan ends up at a small inn in the countryside with Lady Avril, giving fake names to Robb (John Laurie) who owns the place while the maid, Effie (Googie Withers), gives Alan the kind of lustful attention he probably doesn't want but is ultimately harmless. He's there with ulterior motives besides the affair that Lady Avril thinks she's there for. He wants a confession from her about what happened to his father in written form, and he won't leave without it.
What makes this work better than The Phantom Light's plot is that the characters have motivation to actually being involved with what happens. Alan is a young man looking to make something of himself. He wants to advance his career and marry the daughter of a lord, but Sir Julian won't allow it because of the potential scandal. So, he's out there trying to clear his father's name, willing to do almost anything to get that information from a willingly unfaithful woman while also being faithful himself to the woman he loves, even if he has to put on a face and play unfaithfulness to a point.
Things go wrong when Lady Avril falls dead with a chemist's bottle in her hand, a bottle that the pair had picked up on their way there but had been made incorrectly leading to a radio report about it. Convinced that she drank from the bottle, which he can't pry from her hands, Alan panics, flees, takes a boat to France, and gets to his hotel in time for any phone calls due to come.
What follows is Alan navigating the investigation, pushed heavily by Robb and alternatively subdued and then elevated by Sir Julian. He thinks he may have had a real hand in the murder (by picking up the chemist's vial from the shop) in addition to having set himself in a situation where it really does look like he was trying to have an affair with his girl's mother and boss's wife. He also lost the letter that Avril wrote, picked up by Effie right after he left, so his only proof of his ulterior motive has been lost to him. It's a balance that he has to strike, and he can only manage so well, creating this wonderful sense of tension that flows through the whole thing.
The actual resolution is fairly staccato and abrupt, but most of the endings of these quota quickies have been staccato and abrupt. I would have liked a few more minutes, not much, maybe three or so, to get a better sense of where things are going to go. As it stands, I honestly don't know if it's a bittersweet ending or a happy one. I'd be surprised if Powell and team hadn't had a specific feeling in mind and just kind of missed how the ending they settled with left a lingering question that was key to understanding where things would go from there. It's a smallish complaint, but it was still kind of jarring as a place to stop the movie.
Still, the movie looks really good, especially in the inn. There's a set of stairs in the back of the sitting room on the first floor that gets some good use. It's full of strong angles and shadows that almost makes it feel more at home in German Expressionism than a Michael Powell film, showing that he was pushing set design in interesting directions even on tight budgets and short timelines.
So, it's a pretty effective little movie. It's got tension and a story that's almost Hitchcockian. It looks good, is acted well, and moves along with a nice clip before ending a little too quickly. Still, definitely one of the best of the quota quickies from Powell that survive.
