Lloyd's of London

Lloyd's of London is a 1936 American historical drama film directed by Henry King. It stars Freddie Bartholomew, Tyrone Power, Madeleine Carroll, and Guy Standing. The supporting cast includes George Sanders, Virginia Field, and C. Aubrey Smith. Loosely based on historical events, the film follows the dealings of a man who works at Lloyd's of London during the Napoleonic Wars. Lloyd's of London was a hit; it demonstrated that 22-year-old Tyrone Power, in his first starring role, could carry a film, and that the newly formed 20th Century Fox was a major Hollywood studio. Plot In 1770, youngster Jonathan Blake overhears two sailors discussing something suspicious in his aunt's ale-house in a Norfolk fishing village. He persuades his more respectable best friend, Horatio Nelson, to sneak aboard the sailors' ship with him. They overhear a plot involving insurance fraud. Jonathan decides to warn the insurers, walking 100 miles to London to Lloyd's Coffee House, where the insurers conduct their business. Mr. Angerstein, the head of one of the syndicates there, listens to him and is saved from a great loss. When asked, Angerstein explains to Jonathan that waiters at Lloyd's are also insurance auctioneers. Instead of a monetary reward, Jonathan asks to work as a waiter. Many years later, when he is a grown man and Lloyd's has moved and become Lloyd's of London, Jonathan shows Angerstein a system of semaphore telegraph apparatuses he has invented, which can relay messages across the English Channel in five minutes. Around the turn of the century, while gathering news in France disguised as a French priest, he rescues Elizabeth, a secretive young Englishwoman picked up by the French after Napoleon orders the arrest of all English people. On the boat trip back to England, they fall in love. Elizabeth departs before Jonathan learns her full name and residence, but he finds out her address from the driver who transported her. He calls on her uninvited and learns that she is Lady Stacy, married to Lord Everett Stacy, a caddish gambler who has been frequently refused admission to the syndicates at Lloyd's. Insulted at being dismissed by Stacy as a mere "waiter" at Lloyd's, Jonathan vows to make himself so rich and powerful that even the aristocracy will have to pay him respect. Within a few years, Jonathan has his own very successful syndicate, but he has become cynical and hardened. He meets Lord and Lady Stacy again and begins seeing her in secret.