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Tommy Atkins (1928 film)

1928 film by Norman Walker

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ7819191 ↗
Source-derived summary

Tommy Atkins is a 1928 British silent drama film directed by Norman Walker and starring Lillian Hall-Davis, Henry Victor and Walter Byron. Based on the eponymous play by Arthur Shirley and Ben Landeck, it features a romantic drama against the backdrop of the British intervention in The Sudan in the 1880s.

Plot

A cleric enlists on learning he loves his brother's sweetheart, saves his life, and finds he is really an Earl.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tommy Atkins (1928 film)” is 1928 film by Norman Walker. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tommy, Atkins and film, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1928—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1928-01-01. For this dossier, Tommy, Atkins and film is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1928 film by Norman Walker” 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.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7819191. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Tommy Atkins (1928 film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Tommy Atkins (1928 film) primary sources, Tommy Atkins (1928 film) archive and Tommy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tommy Atkins (1928 film)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Tommy Atkins (1928 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.