the Villa Rose was a great success in British movie theatres that year, even as a play version of the novel simultaneously began a long run at the Strand. A successful silent version of The Four Feathers followed the next year. The first sound version of At the Villa Rose was shot both in English and in French at Twickenham Studios in 1930, making it the first British bi-lingual production, released in America under the name The Mystery of the Villa Rose. This marked the film début of Austin Trevor, an actor from Northern Ireland, in the role of Mr. Ricardo. Trevor would go on to be the first actor to create Hercule Poirot on the screen. Veteran British director Walter Summers directed At the Villa Rose, aka House of Mystery, in 1940. Film adaptations Mason's historical novel Fire Over England (1936) was set in the 16th century as a beleaguered Elizabeth I of England prepares for invasion by a tyrannical Spain in the throes of the Inquisition. A thinly veiled metaphor for then-neutral Britain's need to prepare for the threat of Nazi invasion, and published while the Spanish Civil War was raging, the book was adapted for film by the author Clemence Dane for Alexander Korda, England's leading film producer; Korda was helping Winston Churchill in his struggle to alert the British people to the military threat of the Third Reich. The lavish costume drama also made stars of Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier in their first pairing as lovers onscreen, as they were off-screen. Korda also produced The Four Feathers (1939), directed by his brother, Zoltan Korda. Filmed on location in the desert of Sudan, starring Ralph Richardson and John Clements; its technicolor cinematography was nominated for an Oscar. Released before Britain's entry into World War II, its pro-British theme also features valiant British fighting against hopeless odds, this time in a late 19th century imperial setting. Zoltan Korda directed a remake, the much less successful Storm Over the Nile (1955), starring Anthony Steel. Other film versions include three earlier silent films, from 1915, 1921 and 1929, a 1978 American television film with Beau Bridges in the lead role, and The Four Feathers (2002), starring Heath Ledger and Kate Hudson. References Sources External links A. E. W. Mason Collection at the Harry Ransom Center AEW Mason: The most popular (and now forgotten) Storyteller of Edwardian and Modernist England.