When famed A.A. Milne created Winnie the Pooh in 1924, he was already a playwright and an author of detective stories. His 1921 play The Dover Road was first adapted as a silent picture, and then filmed by RKO as Where Sinners Meet (1934). The comedy of polite manners has an original, if bizarre premise: Clive Brook plays Mr. Latimer, an eccentric millionaire who kidnaps two eloping couples, locks them in his mansion, and puts them through various tests so they'll reconsider their rash decision to become runaway lovers. Runaway Eustasia (Billie Burke, the future Good Witch Glynda) drives her chosen partner Nicholas (Alan Mowbray) dotty with her fussing and fluttering, but finds that another runaway, hypochondriac Leonard (Reginald Owen) appreciates her mothering nature. Leonard's partner in elopement Anne (Diana Wynyard) eventually charms none other than the genteel kidnapper-host Latimer, who reveals that he took on this experiment because of his own two failed marriages. The advertising made much of the return pairing of Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook, the stars of the previous year's Best Picture Oscar winner Cavalcade (1933). Variety dismissed Sinners as 'silly ass English hokum,' but another review described the comedy as, "whipped cream amply sprinkled with charm," and praised its fast tempo.

By Glenn Erickson