Ticket of Leave (film)
1936 film by Michael Hankinson
Ticket of Leave is a 1936 British crime film directed by Michael Hankinson and starring Dorothy Boyd, John Clements and George Merritt. It was made as a quota quickie at British and Dominions Elstree Studios by the British subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. The title refers to the ticket of leave given to prisoners when they were released from jail.
Plot
Young ticket-of-leave man Lucky Fisher meets ex-chorus girl Lillian Waters, who intends to steal a valuable necklace from her society fiancé Sir Richard Groves, and forces her to take him on as her partner in crime. They steal the necklace and then decide to repent and quietly return it, leaving no-one the wiser.
Cast
Dorothy Boyd as Lillian Walters
John Clements as Lucky Fisher
George Merritt as Inspector Black
Max Kirby as Goodman
Wally Patch as Sergeant Knott
Enid Lindsey as Edith Groves
J. Neil More as Sir Richard Groves
Molly Hamley-Clifford as Old Rose
Reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The sets are restricted, but the director handles his cameras and actors with reasonable pace of action. John Clements looks interesting on the screen, but George Merritt and Wally Patch, as police inspector and sergeant respectively, show that experience can do more than that even with less material."
Kine Weekly wrote: "This British essay in crime and romance is a poor, unimaginative job of work. The obvious plot is assembled in a very slipshod manner, and what little point there is is blunted by the wooddenness of the principal players. ... In this crime drama story values are the last consideration.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ticket of Leave (film)” is 1936 film by Michael Hankinson. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ticket, Leave and film, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “1936 film by Michael Hankinson” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19898027. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ticket of Leave (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.