Review of C.O.D.: A Mellow Drama

This is currently (April 2012) being offered as a free treat (members only) on the British Film Institute's website. The BFI claims that it was made by four young technicians while they waited for Cricklewood Studios to be wired for sound. The plot, typical of the silent serial, follows a mysterious parcel as it passes from hand to hand. The punchline is that the film is in fact episode 1 of a serial that will never be completed (because of the arrival of the talkies). Enormous care has been taken with the lighting, done by Gerald Gibbs and Desmond Dickinson (not "Desmond Dickens" as credited here). The direction is also stylish, but this seems mainly to have been the work of Harcourt Templeman, whose career petered out in the 1930s. Gibbs and Dickinson, however, went on to have long careers behind the camera.