It's Never Too Late to Mend

It's Never Too Late to Mend is a 1937 British melodrama film directed by David MacDonald and starring Tod Slaughter, Jack Livesey and Marjorie Taylor. The plot involves a villainous squire and justice of the peace who conspires to have his rival arrested on false charges.
It is based on the 1856 novel It Is Never Too Late to Mend by Charles Reade. The film was produced at Shepperton Studios as a quota quickie for release by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was popular enough to be rereleased in 1942.
The novel had been adapted as a 1922 British silent film starring Russell Thorndike as Squire Meadows.

Cast

Tod Slaughter as Squire Meadows
Jack Livesey as Tom Robinson
Marjorie Taylor as Susan Merton
Ian Colin as George Fielding
Laurence Hanray as Lawyer Crawley
D. J. Williams as Farmer Merton
Roy Russell as Rev. Mr. Eden
John Singer as Josephs
Leonard Sharp as Bradshaw
Mavis Villiers as Betty
Cecil Bevan as Prison inspector
Douglas Stewart as Prison inspector
Jack Vyvian as Innkeeper

Reception

TV Guide wrote: "Great fun in the old cloak-and-dagger melodrama style...Played in an exaggerated, bigger-than-life manner, this melodrama is a good enough outing, particularly for fans of camp." Sky Movies wrote: "As usual, Tod Slaughter ignores the intimacy of the film medium and roars through this movie at full throttle, giving the kind of marvellously storming performance that would easily have reached the back row of the upper circle...David MacDonald is more a referee than a conventional director, coming up with a highly entertaining slice of ripe and fruity hokum."