The Hidden Master (1940)

• 64%
• 1940
• Documentary
• History
• Sammy Lee
• John Nesbitt
• Peter Cushing
• Dorothy Granger

This telling of life's passing parade focuses on the theme of luck as told in three true stories. In the first story which takes place in 1744, a young man working for the British East India Company is depressed about his lot with the company. He is stuck with a clerical job, rather than be assigned to military action as he had wanted. He contemplates suicide. If he is successful, he would miss the opportunity to do for the company what he wanted. Luck intervening in what would end up being those failed suicide attempts would lead to a great military life. In the second story, Dr. Wilhelm Röntgen, on November 8, 1895, is working in his lab when an old piece of chemical cardboard on his shelf falls next to an illuminated Leonard vacuum tube. This several million to one accident would lead to one of the most important discoveries within medical history. In the final story, average joe Harry Jones feels that he doesn't get any breaks in life. A wrong number telephone call he receives in the middle of the night may be on the surface considered a continuation of that bad luck, but it alerts him to a menace far greater that probably would have killed him and his family otherwise.