21 Days

21 Days (also known as 21 Days Together, The First and the Last and Three Weeks Together) is a 1940 British drama film based on the short 1919 play The First and the Last by John Galsworthy. It was directed by Basil Dean and stars Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and Leslie Banks. The film was renamed 21 Days Together for the American market. Plot Larry Darrant, the black sheep of his family, returns home to London from an unsuccessful business venture in Kenya and embarks on an affair with a married woman, Wanda. When Wanda's long-absent husband, Henry, who is Russian, shows up, he tries to extort money from the lovers, and pulls a knife on Larry when he refuses to pay. In the ensuing fight Henry is accidentally killed when he strikes his head on the fire fender. Larry places Henry's body in a quiet brick archway at Glove Lane. He then visits his brother Keith, a successful barrister hoping to soon become a judge, for advice. Keith tells Larry to leave the country for a while to avoid capture. In part Keith's motivation is to avoid the damage Larry's arrest would do to his own career. However, Larry refuses to leave, and returns to the alley where he had left the body. There he encounters John Evan, a former minister turned tramp, who picks up bloody gloves that Larry has dropped in the street. When Evan is found with the gloves, he is arrested for Wallen's murder, and the police believe they have sufficient evidence for a conviction. Evan's sense of disgrace for robbing the dead body of a ring is such that he insists on his guilt.