djfjflsflscv Reviews

Fast Charlie (2023)

One of the Best Movies of Brosnan's Career

[10/10 · 19 April 2024]

This is a gritty noir movie, sitting on the edge of the gangster sub-genre, with Pierce Brosnan as a weary hitman. The story chronicles the difficult situation he finds himself in.

One of the best films of Brosnan's career, and part of a loose cycle of what you might call anti-Bond movies (the others being The Tailor of Panama, The Matador and November Man). Compelling watch and a very well-written role for the female lead, both characters are portrayed as resourceful and bolt who cope well under pressure. A light romance threads through the story, but it doesn't take over.

A solid entry in Brosnan's filmography.

The Third Key (1956)

A decent mid-fifties police prodcural

[5/10 · 19 November 2023]

The Long Arm (1956)

A business in Westminster is burgled, and when the police arrive they are greeted by a nightwatchmen. The safe has been opened with a key and its contents stolen. The following day, however, it emerges that the nightwatchman was actually the thief in disguise, and the real nightwatchmen is in hospital with a burst appendix. Superintendent Tom Halliday (Jack Hawkins) and his new Detective Sergeant Ward (John Stratton) begin their hunt for the fraud.

With the help of his boss and friend Chief Superintendent Jim Malcolm (Geoffrey Keen), Halliday discovers that there have been more than a dozen safe-breaking jobs all across Britain, with each involving the same make of safe. With no suspects at the manufacturer, the case seems to have reached a dead end, until the thief strikes again and an innocent bystander is killed with the getaway car.

The vehicle is later found in a scrapyard, inside of which lies a newspaper that leads Halliday and Ward all the way to Snowdonia, North Wales, and a Mr Gilson, a deceased former employee of the safe manufacturer. The pair discover that there are twenty-eight identical safes in London. The most lucrative haul will come from one that is located at the Royal Festival Hall, where a trap is duly set for the thief...

This mid-fifties police procedural plays like an ever so slightly grittier episode of Dixon of Dock Green, with ever-reliable Jack Hawkins, famous at the time for playing resolute men of sturdy, sensible authority, as the investigating officer. An almost documentary style keeps this part of the realist school of detective drama, with only occasional moments of gentle humour, mostly between Halliday and his new sidekick, who, in a running gag that's more of a leisurely stroll, is forever interested in getting off work to see his girlfriend.

The cast are made up of dependable stalwarts of the era, with the likes of Geoffrey Keen (so often excellent in these sort of roles, who sometimes got the chance himself of playing the main detective in lower-budgeted B-films), Sydney Tafler (a big favourite of mine, here playing a character named 'Creasey', presumably because of big-name crime writer of the time John Creasey), and Ralph Truman. Ian Bannen also appears as the victim of the hit and run, to whom Halliday somewhat insensitively questions while on his death bed, and would go on to play the lead role in the amiable Scottish farce Waking Ned over forty years later.

A bunch of other actors with walk-on roles, such as Stafford Johns, would go on to appear as police officers again in the rather more grim Z Cars and Softly, Softly, a dramatic direction which would lead to The Sweeney and everything else that makes The Long Arm now seem antiquated and, despite its efforts at realism, a little unsophisticated.

That's probably ungenerous, as middle-class police investigating mostly non-violent crimes is no less realistic than cockney, blue-collar police chasing rapists, but it nonetheless feels more genteel when you have Hawkins' wife fussing about him being late for tea.

She is, by the way, one of only three women to be given any meaningful role, out of five who appear in the whole film, while most of the cast are middle-class, middle-aged men, with the only ones left over being a street-seller hawking his wares, and Nicholas Parsons as a beat constable.

In fact, thanks to a scene in which Halliday's son has a birthday party, and another in which a young urchin played by Frazer Hines offers a significant lead, there are several more prepubescent boys in the film than women.

Much of which you have to accept with a picture of this vintage, not least as these glimpses into a bygone era are often so interesting, with the location work in particular standing out.

The narrative itself may seem a little ho-hum, with the only action being an exciting finale in which Hawkins grips recklessly to the bonnet of an escaping car (the idea of handcuffing the villain not having occurred to the experienced detective).

The film isn't long and more focussed and markedly less grim than its spiritual successor Gideon's Day a couple of years later, in which Hawkins plays another Scotland Yard man struggling to juggle serious police work with his home life and family. The main difference there is that he has a teenage daughter instead of a young son, and his wife is rather less worried about him.

The Great Outdoors (2010– )

Great Outdoors - Great Comedy!

[10/10 · 12 February 2023]

I can't believe I'm the first person to write a review of this!

Just three episodes aired in summer 2010 and though I haven't seen it since I remember watching them twice through with my parents. Each one was top-to-toe hilarious and It was certainly, to my mind, one of the best British sitcoms produced this century so far. And I've seen pretty much all of them!

A simple premise, but one which was perfectly married to a set of rich characters and, with a fine cast and excellent script, turned out to be properly hilarious. Special praise must be "heaped" on Mark Heap, always a reliable performer, who masterfully anchors the show here. The scripts, written by twice-BAFTA winning Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley of Black Books and Little Britain, were witty and well-observed.

A pity that it didn't return for a second series. I can only imagine that a summer transmission was not the best time for it. Perhaps people were experiencing 'the great outdoors' for themselves, and it would have been better to air in winter when it could be enviously enjoyed like 'Death In Paradise'.

You Can't Do Without Love (1944)

Light but low-key comedy-adventure

[5/10 · 20 December 2021]

Young singer Vera Baker (Vera Lynn) comes to London to entertain a group of RAF personnel on leave. At Waterloo Station, a pick-pocket (Cyril Smith), on the verge of getting caught, sneaks a stolen wallet into her bag. The wallet contains a cloakroom ticket to a mysterious package belonging to Michael Thorne (Donald Stewart), a former theatrical producer, which the nefarious Mr Hampton (Frederick Leister) hopes to claim as his own.

Vera, meanwhile, has been sacked after an impromptu performance at the United Nations Welfare Service. Discovering the wallet, she tries to return it - and impress its owner with her singing abilities - yet both get set upon by Hampton's men.

The package, she learns, is a Rembrandt painting which has been sent to Thorne for safe keeping. Hampton then hires Vera to perform at a cabaret. On the night of the show, he captures Thorne and tries to kill him with the help of a doppelgänger. Vera's efforts to rescue the imperilled producer leave her standing on a window ledge and in danger of dying herself...

An amiable romp with six musical numbers (most of which are performed with a band in view), One Exciting Night is a comedy-adventure without enough laughs or thrills to justify its place in either genre. The last of three wartime vehicles for popular British singer Vera Lynn, known as 'the Nation's Sweetheart' for the achingly poignant 'We'll Meet Again' and patriotic 'The White Cliffs of Dover', it's light on action and focuses mainly on farce.

The plot is mildly engaging but much too convoluted, a sub-Wodehousian blend of light romance and criminal machinations which too often takes a back-seat to the songs. Lynn, here a wholesome, toothily attractive twenty-something, is charming and personable in a role which, perhaps unfortunately, requires her to be oblivious of the surrounding danger for much of the film. A far better version could have been made with her as an enterprising amateur sleuth in accord with the mystery, yet as it is she does no detective work whatsoever.

Even the last-reel jeopardy is half-hearted, lacking any concerted effort to excite or surprise, while the late introduction of one of those miraculous face-masks, so often seen in the Mission Impossible films, makes things all the more outrageous. The film ends, too, on a slightly anticlimactic note as the villains aren't arrested and - most distastefully - the male lead seems to settle on Vera because his true love is already married.

Nonetheless, if one doesn't ask too much of it, One Exciting Night makes for a warm, whimsical, occasionally even fleet-footed film, with at least a couple of enjoyable songs: 'It's Like Old Times' is a wistful, pop-ballad sing-along while 'You Can't Do Without Love', a call for household recycling in aid of the war effort, is a fun little ditty despite playing more like a public information announcement. Of course, it's all somewhat unlikely, and only in the 1940s could the plot of a feature film depend on somebody returning a lost wallet. If that happened to any of us today, it really would be one exciting night.

Man on the Run (1949)

Terrific Old British Thriller

[7/10 · 20 December 2021]

Peter Burden (Derek Farr) is an army deserter, one of twenty thousand British men who live in fear of imprisonment even after the war has ended. Having served four years, the authorities denied his request for compassionate leave in order to attend his mother's deathbed and he absconded in disgust. He is now working as a landlord of a country pub and is pulling pints when an old army acquaintance (Kenneth More) walks in and recognizes him. Corporal Newman is newly demobbed and, having found only low-paid work in the area, opportunistically blackmails Burden. Terrified, Burden flees again, this time returning to London, where a lack of funds and the late rent on a ragged bedsit force him to try and pawn his old service revolver. At the jeweller's, however, two armed robbers arrive and promptly kill a copper, with Burdon believed to be part of the gang.

His attempts to elude the police become more perilous than ever and a desperate escape sees him bounding breathlessly into the house of young widow Jean Adams (Joan Hopkins). Jean takes pity on the ex-soldier and agrees to help. The pair become determined to find the robbers, knowing only that one of them (Edward Underdown) is missing two fingers on his left hand. All the while, they must avoid the grimly persistent Chief Inspector Mitchell (Edward Chapman) and Detective Sergeant Lawson (a young Laurence Harvey), who prove to be quite able pursuers...

Lawrence Huntington directed, produced and wrote this foray into near-noir which was presumably inspired by the many deserters still at large long after V. E. Day. His script carefully positions Burdon as a sympathetic figure (the name is well-chosen).

The sad circumstances surrounding his desertion and the fact he had spent most of the war in combat is repeated at least once. To steer clear from presenting him as a coward or a chancer was undoubtedly important as everyone in the audience would have known soldiers or might even have been one themselves. Huntington also has his protagonist plea for a more constructive solution to the problem, particularly when so many such people inevitably turn to crime to survive. This situation, often forgotten today, makes Man on the Run interesting and slightly more nuanced than other chase thrillers, though it so solidly sides with Burdon that a more minute exploration of similar issues facing other such soldiers - for example, post-traumatic stress or the frustrating futility of war itself - is avoided altogether. There's a sense that each man would have his own story, though nobody describes what those might be.

Derek Farr is excellent as Burdon: pained, thoughtful, and reluctant to enlist anyone else's help. It's a shame he didn't have more of a career as he could easily have become a Kenneth More. More himself pops up early on, well before his middle-class every-man persona, like an English James Stewart in tweeds and a pipe, would lead him to become one of Britain's biggest film stars.

The police investigation, meanwhile, is headed by the sort of dogged, pipe-smoking detective familiar to pictures of this period, with Chapman's chief inspector wry and astute enough to elicit tension.

It's this quietly humming, will-they-catch-him? Element which carries the film, particularly in the excellent first half, though a thrilling set-piece of the sort included in The 39 Steps (which also had a bad guy deprived of a digit) or North By Northwest is unfortunately even more elusive than Burdon himself.

Particularly interesting for its glimpses of post-war life (from genuine London locations to a reference to radio's proto-James Bond Dick Barton), plus some gently amusing moments, Man on the Run makes for an entertaining and compelling thriller which is much recommended.

A Pair of Briefs (1962)

Pleasant Early '60s Comedy

[7/10 · 20 December 2021]

A career in law for restless junior barrister Tony Stevens (Michael Craig) has so far revolved around cases concerning sewage pollution and he's longing for something even slightly more salacious. His mood isn't improved upon learning that he is to share his chambers with a new female colleague, particularly as the idealistic Frances Pilbright (Mary Peach) comes from a prestigious legal family and is immediately offered interesting briefs.

Her first case centres on a middle-aged, working class - and, it seems, easily confused - woman named Gladys Pudney (Brenda da Banzie) who claims to have been married during the war before a bomb explosion gave her instant amnesia and she forgot all about her clownish, crooked husband Sidney (Ron Moody). Now recovered, Gladys has tracked him down, but he claims not to know her, perhaps due to the presence of a glamorous if somewhat sozzled girlfriend (Liz Fraser).

With so few offers of his own, Tony cons his caddish solicitor friend Hubert (John Standing) to give him the job of Sidney's defense counsel, and thereby places himself in direct opposition to Frances' efforts to prosecute. Their ensuing battle of wits before Mr Justice Haddon (James Robertson Justice) is further fraught by the growing attraction between them, and eventually upended altogether when it is emerges that Gladys isn't all that she appears...

This Rank comedy from Ralph Thomas and Betty Box was based on a play and adapted by actor Nicholas Phipps, who also appears (and would go on to write 1963's Doctor in Distress).

Set largely in a courtroom, A Pair of Briefs clearly betrays its stage-bound origins and though there is the occasional effort to expand, such scenes are unnecessary as enough energy is sustained through the performances.

Most particular of these is the ever-excellent James Robertson Justice, once again playing the abrasive intellectual who wearily tolerates and upbraids all who dare to test his patience and manages to anchor a story which might otherwise seem a little on the dull side.

Michael Craig is another plus, one of the most reliable of Britain's leading men of the period, though quite neglected today, while Mary Peach shines (despite being seemingly dubbed), especially in a late scene when her character becomes tearfully defiant in the face of what she considers to be the dry callousness of courtroom detachment. The following year, Peach would make it to Hollywood and appear alongside Rock Hudson and Rod Taylor in the flop aviation drama A Gathering of Eagles before turning her focus to British television. A pre-Oliver! Ron Moody deserves special mention too as Sidney Pudney, a disreputable and somewhat tedious man who he makes somehow likable, while Brenda De Banzie eschews the mature glamour of her other roles in favour of a northern, down-at-heel housewife.

Despite its saucy title, there is no sexual frolicking of the Carry On kind, or even slapstick, but neither is it as snotty as the Boulting Brothers' Brothers In Law. Instead, A Pair of Briefs is one of those forgotten old comedies that only seem to pop up in Britain on a weekday mid-afternoon on Channel 4: slight and maybe unmemorable, but amiably amusing with a familiar and capable cast, and certainly worth a watch for fans of inoffensive British films of the era.

Diagnosis Murder: The Last Resort (1998) Season 6, Episode 9

Solid Episode

[9/10 · 20 December 2021]

I used to love Diagnosis Murder. When I was eleven and twelve years old, my mum would record (on VHS!) the daily afternoon repeat while I was busy enduring institutional trauma at school. It may not have been the coolest television programme around, but it was light-hearted and often reasonably exciting, with a nifty mystery plot and maybe a bit of action too.

As I'm sure everybody here knows, the show revolved around ebullient sixty-something Dr Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke), the Chief of Internal Medicine at Community General Hospital in Los Angeles, who also doubles as an amateur sleuth and eventual consultant for the L. A. P. D., often working alongside his homicide detective son Steve (a permanently purse-lipped Barry Van Dyke, Dick's real-life son). Assisting Mark are a couple of young, attractive medical colleagues, sensible and assertive Dr Amanda Bentley (Victoria Rowell) and boyishly enthusiastic Dr Jessie Travis (Charlie Schlatter), though all three are often hindered by the fussy, fulminating hospital administrator Norman Briggs (Michael Tucci), who believes they should focus on their patients instead of trying to solve crimes.

The series depended almost disproportionately on its star and the good-will he had accrued from his eponymous sitcom and triptych of big-screen musicals from the early-to-mid 1960s. Like Andy Griffith, that other wholesome '60s comedy lead who turned to the less demanding mystery genre in old age, Van Dyke was able to carve out a niche, catering to a more mature audience and working as a sort of counter-programming to gritty police procedurals like NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Street. Stylistically, it was a less twee and ever so slightly more plausible Murder, She Wrote, without ever becoming a similarly solid ratings champion. Indeed, Diagnosis Murder sputtered every year into almost reluctant renewals by a higher-brass who knew how appealing the older demographic was to advertisers compared to the younger, more impecunious generations under them.

Whereas many episodes had a minor, frivolous subplot to offset all the murder and petty revenge, there was a small shake-up in the sixth season when things occasionally became a little bit darker than regular viewers might ordinarily expect. 'The Last Resort' was one such episode, and there's nary a chuckle to be had in its forty-four minutes, beginning with Steve apparently losing his professional perspective and attacking a suspect during interrogation - even throwing a chair through the one-way glass. The sudden meltdown, after five years of watching this wearily workmanlike detective harrumphing his way through a slew of homicide investigations, is surprising, particularly as we're told that he was supposed to be a calming influence on his new partner Reggie.

An abrasive, confrontational cop, Reggie Ackroyd (Joe Penny) is constantly on the brink of getting fired or even arrested himself, only justifying his erratic behaviour with the dubious assertion that his wife and daughter were kidnapped by a criminal named Sykes. Everyone else, however, believes his wife simply left him. Things get even worse for the pair when Steve inadvertently kills an unarmed rapist and reluctantly allows Reggie to cover it up. After further trouble, the men are strong-armed into attending a psychiatric rehabilitation program at Community General Hospital - a "Betty Ford clinic, except it's for cops" - and struggle through sessions of group therapy led by the bluntly incisive Dr Sinclair (Reginald Val Johnson of Die Hard and Family Matters).

While Steve is weighed down by guilt of the cover-up, Reggie begins losing all sense of reality, the frustration and anger over his family's supposed capture uncoiling into a series of vividly disturbing hallucinations.

Will he find them? Or is there something even more sinister going on?

A dark story, with one of its biggest surprises being the absence of a breezy tag-scene that typically closes every episode, and the decision to let its grimly unsettling final fade-out stew in the viewer's mind. Joe Penny, formerly of the now-forgotten Jake and the Fatman (a series which originated the Mark Sloan character in a one-episode guest turn, though Penny plays another role here), is excellent as the cold and mercurial Ackroyd, a man driven to insanity from rage, remorse and the pressures of a police career.

To my eyes, at least, he looks like Sylvester Stallone, with a similar, moodily masculine persona to match. Barry Van Dyke, meanwhile, is subtly effective, though mostly this is due to the unexpected novelty of a more personal plot-line for the character rather than a genuinely compelling performance.

(I used to be curious about the situation the younger Van Dyke was in at this point. Dick had insisted on a role for his son as a condition of his own participation, and Barry has accrued few credits solo. As Steve, he made for a believable cop, in that he was bland, dour, and could handle the few, occasional fight scenes. Career-wise, though, he was a hunk in a town full of them, with little to distinguish himself from the pack, and though his features seemed as chiselled as a stick of chalk, he didn't necessarily have the good looks of other major stars, like Hasselhoff, Lee Majors or Richard Dean Anderson, and wasn't genial enough to foster affection as James Garner and Tom Selleck had done in similar roles. While acting, Barry was always either crimping his mouth or just letting his jaw hang, regardless of the scene and his place within it. But as a "type", the somewhat generic cop who could move plausibly through crime stories, he was quite adequate. Not wooden like some actors, and neither was he the only one out there with a narrow range. It did the job.)

Elsewhere in the episode, there's a more conventional mystery sub-plot that keeps the other two regulars occupied as they investigate the locked room murder of a lab technician. For once, Jessie confronts the culprit, and in a slyly charismatic manner too, demonstrating how a puppyish medical prodigy can lull any criminal into a false sense of security.

It all makes for a pleasing change of pace in a series which wasn't always as pedestrian as its reputation suggests.

Operation Diplomat (1953)

Excellent '50s Thriller

[10/10 · 20 December 2021]

Surgeon Mark Fenton (Guy Rolfe) is leaving St. Matthew's Hospital in London one evening when an ambulance pulls up and a nurse jumps out. Urgently, she tells him that there is a patient on board who needs his help, yet when he steps inside there is only an armed man (Sydney Tafler). Fenton is escorted to a secluded house where he is instructed to operate on an unknown male with the assistance of a disgraced doctor named Schröder (Anton Diffring) and a woman (Lisa Daniely) whose dark eyes peek bewitchingly over a surgical mask. The patient is half-conscious at first and mutters deliriously about a "golden valley". Afterwards, Fenton's drink is spiked and he later awakes on a park bench.

Determined to forget the incident, he returns to the hospital, where he encounters a woman with the same distinct eyes as the one who worked alongside him the night before. He demands she visit him at his flat that evening - yet she doesn't turn up. Instead, within minutes of arriving home, he receives two other, separate visitors: Colonel Wyman of the Foreign Office (Eric Berry), who asks about Schröder, and then Schröder himself.

Apparently, the patient was Sir Oliver Peters, the chairman of the United Western Defence Committee, known as "the man who knows all the secrets". A bullet makes things even more alarming, yet Inspector Austin of Scotland Yard (Ballard Berkeley) is suspicious of Fenton and his tale of abduction, death, and disappearing diplomats, forcing the surgeon to mount his own investigation.

The only clues are "the golden valley" and a brand of cigarettes which repeatedly appear, yet with the aid of colleague Sister Rogers (Patricia Dainton), Fenton follows a treacherous trail to the kidnapped Sir Oliver, all the while wondering just who could be behind such a sinister, international scheme... One of several British television serials of the 1950s to be remade as a feature, Operation Diplomat was originally penned by Francis Durbridge, the popular and prolific thriller writer best known for the Paul Temple radio series. The character of Mark Fenton had already appeared in another such effort, The Broken Horseshoe, in which Robert Beatty had played the part for cinemas. Here, the tall, tanned and almost skeletally gaunt Guy Rolfe leads, and he makes for a likeable, though somewhat saturnine, amateur sleuth trying desperately to keep track of events. The audience will sympathise, as the mystery in this one is particularly tangled. A couple of things could have been clarified, but all the information is mostly present (or at least can be intuited). The pace is the selling point, with compelling developments occurring every ten minutes or so, as may be expected from something adapted from a serial - particularly one from Durbridge, whose tried-and-tested tropes appear again in an every-man hero, a cryptic word clue, casual and quite accidental conversations which turn out to be crucial, and a culprit apparently picked at random from an unwieldy stock of suspects.

The seventy minutes not only go by swiftly but the cast make it even better. Berkeley, later to become familiar to British audiences as the muddle-minded Major in John Cleese's legendary sitcom Fawlty Towers, is on fine avuncular form as the inspector, while the ever-reliable Sydney Tafler is always a pleasure to see, and professional-foreigner Anton Diffring is briefly afforded something other than a sinister bad guy role. Look out, too, for Desmond Llewelyn (Q in the Bond films) as a silent extra at the end.

Despite final dialogue teasing further adventures with the intrepid Mr Fenton, there was to be no other sequel. Durbridge wouldn't create another recurring character until giving us TV's Tim Frazer the following decade. A pity, as more fast-paced adventures would have been just what the doctor ordered.

F/X2 (1991)

F/X 2: The Deadly Art of Illusion

[6/10 · 25 April 2020]

Five years after thwarting a government conspiracy involving the murder of his girlfriend, Australian Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown), a former designer of movie special effects, has carved out a new life creating expensive mechanised toys and living with new love Kim (Total Recall's Rachel Ticotin) and her son Chris (Dominic Zamprogna). Things are going well until Kim's ex-husband cop Mike asks for help in snaring a dangerous rapist. Rollie agrees and once more conjures movie magic to make the trap look genuine. Unfortunately, it goes wrong and Mike is killed, and Rollie discovers it was an inside job. Worse - the bad guys know this and want him and Kim dead. With friend and former NYPD detective Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy) in tow, Rollie investigates a plot involving antique gold medallions, corrupt cops and a multi-million dollar Mafia deal. He will need all of his technological know-how and shrewd survival tactics to keep his new family safe.

This sequel came five years after 1986's F/X: Murder By Illusion, a modest hit at the box office but an even bigger one on the home video market. Producer Dodi Fayed (who would, of course, die tragically with Princess Diana) returned alongside Brown, while the script was written by Bill Condon, a future Oscar winner of such impressively diverse films as Chicago, Mr Holmes, the last two Twilight films, Kinsey and The Greatest Showman. Although it initially opened at number one, the film failed to have any continued success and reviews weren't particularly kind. It's still, though, a worthy follow-up and sure to please fans of the first one.

Sequels usually take what worked in the original and repeat it more broadly, and that's precisely what happens here, right down to the elderly lawman turning coat for millions (which can only make you question the paucity of police pensions), the guerrilla war finale, and a welcome re-appearance from computer whiz Marisa Velez (Jossie DeGuzman). Most importantly, of course, we see Rollie cook up even more ingeniously inventive traps - literally, during a stand-out supermarket chase, when baked beans prove every bit a dangerous as natural uranium. There's also an original - or, at least, "different" - fight involving an imitative robot clown.

It's all jolly japes, and the Vatican medallions give it a mild National Treasure flavour, but the premise seems a little tired by the end. In giving the hero a distinctively technological approach to combat, as opposed to letting him use his fists, the script paints itself into a corner. Rollie goes out of his way to set traps for anonymous henchmen when a swift knock on the bonce would be simpler. (Perhaps he's a pacifist, but what this man can do with an aerosol spray would impress MacGyver.) At one point, we're expected to believe he has previously infiltrated the villain's heavily-guarded house in order to set traps which shall enable him to infiltrate it a second time. It's a paradox worthy of Doctor Who. (Another head-scratcher is the absence of the fifteen million dollars Rollie and Leo stole at the end of the first film and their subsequent escape into the Swiss Alps. They're now both back in New York so clearly aren't fugitives, and while we may assume that Rollie bought his fancy loft apartment with his half of the money, he still works for a living. Leo, meanwhile, despite owning a defunct bar, has to makes ends meet as a private detective specialising in divorce cases.)

The film climaxes with a couple of neat gadgets shrewdly seeded at the beginning, a minor twist concerning the medallions, and an unexpectedly comic ending for the main bad guy. I don't understand why it wasn't as warmly received as the first film, as they're both very good. The premise is solid, like an adult, city-wide Home Alone. Though I'd have thought two films were enough, a television series based on the films began in 1998 and ran for two seasons.

F/X (1986)

F/X

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

Hunky Australian Roland "Rollie" Tyler (Bryan Brown) works in the American film industry as a special effects artist. You should see his flat. It's full of alabaster heads and mannequins that look like murdered spouses. He's so good at his job, in fact, that Department of Justice agent Martin Lipton (Cliff DeYoung) want his help in faking the murder of a mob informant named Nicholas DeFranco (ironically, Law and Order's Jerry Orbach), before the mafia do it for real. Rollie reluctantly accepts the assignment, fixes DeFranco up with fake blood packs and even gets talked into playing the killer by head honcho Edward Mason (Mason Adams). The staged hit at an expensive Italian restaurant goes as planned and Rollie believes his part is over - until Lipton tries to kill him as a "loose end". Rollie escapes, but as more blood is spilled - the real stuff, this time - he is forced to confront a conspiracy which involves some very corrupt lawman and many millions of dollars. Fortunately, Rollie is resourceful, with a career's worth of Tinseltown trickery to surprise and snare his murderous pursuers. Meanwhile, middle-aged maverick homicide detective Lt. Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy) becomes suspicious of DeFranco's supposed death, but his investigation is frustrated by senior officials who have the power to keep their secrets buried - along with anyone who tries to stop them.

This 1986 action thriller became a hit at the box office, though it wasn't helped by an enigmatic title. In its favour, however, was a shrewd, occasionally playful script and a convincingly incredulous turn from stiff-lipped Bryan Brown, here caught between his breakout role in the Australian mini-series A Town Like Alice and Tom Cruise's bottle-juggling juggernaut Cocktail (also, somewhat less illustriously, a supporting role in the vacuous Paul McCartney vehicle Give My Regards to Broad Street). Early on, his ineffective flailing with a wily sniper demonstrates just how alien Rollie is in a world of cold kills and glibly indifferent corruptors, yet his ingenuity with practical illusions quickly evens the odds, and it's then that the film goes from a conventionally Hitchcockian man-on-the-run thriller to one which is confident enough to throw some black comedy and charismatic character business among the squealing car chases. Though an everyman, Rollie is confident in his abilities and the script doesn't bother explaining the specifics of his armoury, but instead lets him deploy each trap - which is what they manifestly become, original usage be damned - to the gleeful surprise of the audience.

Running alongside all this is the police investigation, coloured by Dennehy's roguishly charming renegade, but anyone hoping that these two characters will meet and spar will be disappointed as the threads don't link up until the end. As such, the narrative risks becoming disjointed, yet avoids it by slowly explaining the mayhem which Rollie is experiencing elsewhere. This makes it different from, say, The Fugitive, which gave us lawmen searching obsessively for our hero, and North By Northwest, which emitted the chase entirely. It also affords us some gently flirtatious moments between McCarthy and savvy computer geek Marisa Velez (Jossie DeGuzman), plus his guileless sergeant (amusingly played by Joe Grifasi), who unfortunately disappears after the second act, along with original bad guy Lipton. Ironically, considering the reason he wanted to bump off Rollie in the first place, this character is left as a loose end.

More awkwardness is found at film's end. The climax is handled well, with yet more slickly mischievous pyrotechnics, and the bad guy disposed of in a particularly novel way, but things should have ended there. Instead, an unnecessary postscript robs the story of a satisfactory ending and mars an otherwise excellent film. An unsuccessful sequel followed five years later, after which Bryan Brown re-focused his career on Australia.

Dick Barton: Special Agent (1979)

Dick Barton - Special Agent

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

Back when radio was the most significant medium for home entertainment, fifteen million people would listen nightly to Dick Barton - Special Agent, an action adventure serial replete with cliff-hangers and derring-do, on the Light Programme. It followed former commando Captain Richard Barton and his two friends 'Snowy' White and 'Jock' Anderson as they repelled the plans of various criminal masterminds and somehow escaped the perilous traps that were repeatedly set for them.

The serial ran between 1946 and 1951, usually at 6.45 pm, for fifteen minutes apiece. 711 episodes were made, all written by Geoffrey Webb and Edward J. Mason, and each adhering to the thirteen rules of conduct which decreed that Dick could not use bad language, drink alcohol or use a knife to harm. Apart from the hero's name and the adventure it evokes, the serial is best remembered for its theme tune, The Devil's Gallop, a rousing and rambunctious slice of genius by composer Charles Williams which makes one want to dash about the room and press against the wall as though hiding from fiendish saboteurs.

The nanny state killed the show off after five years in the belief that it was damaging to the dear young children. By this time, however, the show was a nationwide phenomenon, spawning a behind-the-scenes book, another volume of short stories and three films from Hammer Studios (at the time, best known for making thrillers, not horrors). The BBC then replaced it with a rustic drama named The Archers, the theme tune of which must have made every red-blooded adventurer used to Barton's buccaneering wish for another war.

The late 1970s saw a minor revival for Dick and his friends. A somewhat sparsely written but nonetheless enjoyable book, novelising three of the radio serials, was published in 1977. That same year, filming took place on a televised series of new adventures. Made by Southern Television, a small ITV company, each episode lasted ten minutes (excluding commercials) and shown on Saturdays and Sundays from January to April 1979. The 32 episodes starred Tony Vogel as Barton, Anthony Heaton as 'Snowy' and James Cosmo as 'Jock' and comprised four adventures, each lasting between six and ten parts each. Typically for its time, the serial was shot on video, a format which can make the most expensive television look cheap. Such an impression, in this instance, would be accurate as there were apparently several budgetary issues which undermined the production of the programme.

This is mostly apparent in the sometimes dodgy direction work, though it can only be imagined that the director was doing his best with the little he had. The location work - usually one of the most costly features of scripted television - is plentiful and the acting is more or less solid throughout. As you would expect from such a short serial, the whole thing runs like the clappers and the scripts - mostly by Clive Exton, who would later bring Poirot and Jeeves & Wooster to television - wisely play it straight throughout. There is, of course, the odd bit of wince-inducing dialogue, but all such things can be waved away as attempts at period authenticity.

The first adventure sees an old bird named Sir Richard Marley call on Barton when his daughter Virginia and son Rex go missing. They have been kidnapped by the dastardly foreigner Melganik, who plans on substituting tobacco with reefer and thus turning the whole of Britain into "drug fiends". The story lasts ten parts, co-stars future Strictly Come Dancing contestant Fiona Fullerton and memorably includes the old walls-closing-in-with-spikes routine. The second adventure, in eight parts, starts a little too similarly as a young girl - this time an old acquaintance of Jock's - is in danger when her scientist father is kidnapped by the evil Muller. The third serial ties in neatly with the first two and involves a disappearing house, while the last adventure sees the team encounter a couple of menacing, Kray-like gangsters.

The series is available on DVD and can sometimes be seen nightly on Talking Pictures TV - which is how I saw it. Tony Vogel is outstanding in the part of Barton. He takes it all seriously, remains believable in the period, and can even be tough when he wants to be. The whole thing is basically a children's show, of course, but it was always going to be and is none the worse for it. The only downside is the brevity of the episodes: it may have made more of an impact had it been shown in half-hour instalments, like Doctor Who. As it was, for whatever reason, the show was not a success and was quickly forgotten. The production company itself folded within a couple of years.

Dick Barton did not return again until the late '90s and then only to theatres (perhaps inevitably, as he had already featured in every other medium). With only four cast members, these nine plays were comedy-musicals which parodied the brand, boasted innuendo and were mostly staged at Croydon's now-closed Warehouse Theatre. The last we have so far heard from Dick and his friends is, funnily enough, due to the TV version. The series produced four novelizations and one of them, The Mystery of the Missing Formula, was released in 2010 on CD and read by a thoroughly game Toby Stephens.

After all these years, I don't think anyone is quite sure just why a British private detective is walking around calling himself a special agent, but I certainly hope he makes another come-back at some point. Cue music!

Witness in the Dark (1959)

Witness In the Dark

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

Most stories relay on relatable, often primal instincts to engage an audience. In thrillers, fear is the one most filmmakers try to evoke, and it can never be more acute than those times in which we are least in control. We feel especially vulnerable when we are incapacitated in some way and the most dramatic method of conveying this is injuring the protagonist. This usually happens towards the end of the third act, during the final confrontation when it seems as though the hero is about to perish. Sometimes, however, the injury is built into the story from the start in order to bring maximum intensity. The most famous example of this is Hitchcock's Rear Window, in which James Stewart's photojournalist breaks his leg and is forced to remain in his Greenwich Village apartment with nothing to do but stare out of the window and suspect people of murdering their wives. In Witness in the Dark, the injury is blindness. This had already been explored in 23 Paces to Baker Street (1956) and would be again in Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn and See No Evil with Mia Farrow.

Jane Pringle (Patricia Dainton) was blinded five years ago in a car accident in France which also killed her fiancé. She now continues to work as a switchboard operator and even teaches a young boy how to read Braille. However, one night, alone in her flat, she hears a disturbance downstairs. She investigates, moving into the hall, and encounters a thief (Nigel Green) on the staircase. Fortunately for the thief, Jane is unable to see him and will not, therefore, be able to identify him later. The thief does not attack her and instead escapes. Inspector Coates (Conrad Phillips) investigates and discovers that the thief had also murdered Mrs Temple, the old lady whose flat had been burgled. Jane, realising that she came so near to the culprit, believes she can help. Things get charged, however, when the thief decides he must return and tie up one or two loose ends...

A brisk, involving thriller, Witness in the Dark succeeds in what all such films must do and makes the audience feel affection for the character in danger. Jane is a pragmatic, brave, independent and compassionate woman who clearly has not let the tragedy in her life define it, and Dainton convincingly portrays someone without sight, sans glasses. Nigel Green, unsurprisingly, makes for a dauntingly sinister villain and, in the final scenes, maintains dignity and tension in what might otherwise have seemed vaguely farcical. Conrad Phillips gives his usual best, here appearing after thirty-nine episodes of ITV's The Adventures of William Tell. I'm always interested - though not morbidly so - in how long such actors ended up living and Phillips only recently left us at the age of 90, after publishing his autobiography Aiming True online.

There is also some amiable comedy involving Jane's neighbours Mr and Mrs Finch, in which the former is hoping to retain the stolen pocket watch he has recently bought down the pub and not relinquish it to the investigating officer. Elsewhere, eagle-eyed viewers will spot Man About the House and Robin's Nest star Richard O'Sullivan, only fifteen as the young blind boy Jane coaches, while there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it role from future Doctor Who and Emmerdale Farm star Frazier Hines as a newspaper boy.

Two Way Stretch (1960)

Two Way Stretch

[7/10 · 3 April 2020]

This delightful comedy starring a pre-Clouseau Peter Sellers is basically Porridge fifteen years earlier, with Peter Sellers as crafty, cockney career criminal (and guest of Her Majesty's) 'Dodger' Lane. He and his cell-mates 'Jelly' Knight (David Lodge) and Lenny (Bernard Cribbins) treat the prison like a hotel, with a newspaper and fry-up every morning. The staff, meanwhile, are gullible and good-natured, with the governor (Maurice Denham) more interested in growing prize-winning vegetable marrows than keeping his convicts under control. Unsurprisingly, with such an easy life, Dodger and co have no wish to escape.

This, however, is just what their old conspirator 'Soapy' Stevens (Wilfred Hyde-White) asks them to do. Disguised as a gentlemanly prison chaplain, he recognises that the trio's imprisonment affords them the perfect alibi and enlists their help in a diamond heist. All they have to do is break out of prison, carry out the theft and break back in again. With the prison's security almost non-existent, the plan is bound to succeed. However, a problem arrives in the shape of Dodger's old nemesis, the irascible and sadistic prison warder 'Sour' Crout (Lionel Jeffries). With this guy around, there's no way our trio can figure out a way to escape ... surely?

Caper comedies were popular at this time with The Big Job (1965), Too Many Crooks (1959) and Make Mine Mink (1960) showing that we Brits may be rubbish criminals but do make pretty good comedies. This was one of the most popular British films on the year of release and it's easy to see why. Schoolboys, in particular, must have loved the silly fun found here and Jeffries makes for a terrific pantomime villain as the gestapo-like Crout, screaming his lines ("Silence when you're talking to me!") and determined to make every inmate suffer. There's excellent support too from Liz Fraser and cockney favourite Irene Handl, the latter urging her son Lenny to escape jail like everyone else in their family.

The break-out attempts in the middle of the film tip the hat to both The Wooden Horse (1950) and Danger Within (1959), spoofing another popular genre of the time, though both are episodic and unsurprisingly focus more on comedy than logistical analysis. The eventual theft of the diamonds from an army vehicle is a little underwhelming, however, though Thorley Walters shows how he could have played Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army (a role in which he was considered).

This was probably the most casual performance Sellers ever gave, lacking as it does the multi-character revue of The Mouse That Roared (1959), Dr Strangelove (1964) and Soft Beds, Hard Battles (1974) or the intensity of I'm Alright, Jack (1959) and Being There (1979). It is also one of his most charming and accessible films, proving that not only Ealing could do Ealing. Fans should also check out The Wrong Arm of the Law (1962) another Sellers caper and something of a spiritual successor to this and, more recently, the starry but neglected prison comedy Lucky Break (2001).

Tony Rome (1967)

Tony Rome

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

Cop-turned-private detective Tony Rome (Frank Sinatra) lives on a powerboat in Miami. In a captain's hat and a yellow turtle-neck, he is enjoying the sunshine when he gets a call from Ralph Turpin. The pair were partners in the police but now hate each other. Now a "hotel dick", Turpin has discovered a young, drunk woman lying unconscious in one of the rooms. He and the manager want her out before the police start bothering them and are ready to pay Rome for the service. Diana Pines, it turns out, is not just anyone but the daughter of millionaire construction magnate Rudy Kosterman and her father is grateful when Rome brings her home. She has been acting strangely lately and he wants Rome to find out why. Meanwhile, Diana discovers her diamond pin has gone missing, believes it must have been stolen while she was drunk and wants it back. Now hired by the whole family, Rome investigates and soon finds the first of several dead bodies...

One of the interesting things about the 1960s is seeing how the more established stars handled it. Pretty much all of culture changed and many had to adapt. In the wake of The Beatles, Sinatra was not considered cool anymore and his film career faltered. He had always been the most credible of singers-actors, but Marriage on the Rocks (1965) and Assault on a Queen (1966) both failed at the box office while The Naked Runner (1967) received poor notices. In response, Sinatra turned to the kind of part which would fill out his remaining filmography.

Around this time, the film noir genre was making a minor resurgence, with Bulitt, Harper, P.J., Madigan and Marlowe. These films tried to recapture the grim and darkly glamourous world of The Big Sleep (1946) and Out of the Past (1947), which themselves were trying to evoke the hardboiled setting of the novels they were often adapting. Sinatra was one of the first to get on board with this. Based on Miami Mayhem, a now-forgotten paperback original by writer Marvin H. Albert, Tony Rome cast him as a private detective in the wise-cracking Phillip Marlowe mould, a jaded yet honourable man in a disreputable business. It's not surprising that he fits the part. Many of Sinatra's best songs - One for My Baby, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning - conjure the kind of bars in which you would expect to find Sam Spade and Mike Hammer, while his trademark trilby made him look like them.

The film itself is colourful, both aesthetically and otherwise. The Floridian setting gives it a look which is quite at odds with the shadows and neon found elsewhere in the genre (though both the Travis McGee and Mike Shayne books were based around detectives in the Sunshine State). The deliberate way in which director Gordon Douglas focuses on young, bikini-clad women make it seem as though the Bond films were an equal inspiration. Nancy Sinatra - who sang the theme to You Only Live Twice the same year - performs the obligatory cheesy theme here while Diamonds Are Forever's Jill St. John is Ann Archer, a three-time-divorcee whose main problem is being bored between parties. Indeed, there is a seediness which is never less than overt as Rome meets junkies, prostitutes, strippers, blackmailers, gangsters and, of course, a murderer. It is balanced, however, with the usual sardonic humour which, in fairness, is genuinely amusing. There are many great lines here ("You're not a family, you're a bunch of people who live at the same address!"). The juxtaposition between the grim underworld and the sunny scenes of cheery impudence can be a little jarring, however, most notably in a running gag involving a honeymooning couple.

The plot is convoluted in the way that is expected from all private eye movies. Like most, it begins with a routine job that quickly gets more complex - something of which even Rome is aware. He is independently hired by each of the Kostermans and finds enough skeletons to fill a cemetery. In-between times, he gets into the usual fights and chases, though they are more frequent in the first hour than the second, which drags noticeably. The film could certainly have been cut by as much as half an hour, such is the languid pace and extraneous shots of the scenery, which doesn't always involve the weather. As is the way with these things, the script has more names than a phone book and it is not always easy to match them. The motive, however, is an excellent one and clears up a story that, by the end, gets muddier by the moment. An entertaining time-waster, Tony Rome makes up for its inconsistent tone and puzzling plot with Sinatra's familiar, nonchalant charm and an unapologetic persistence in reminding you of the year it was made. A moderate hit at the box office, a sequel (Sinatra's only) followed two years later.

Cross-Up (1954)

Tiger By the Tail

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

John Desmond is an American newspaper journalist who has arrived in London to report on the British perspective of stateside politics. He begins dating an attractive brunette named Anna Ray, but she is secretive and volatile and often ends their dates prematurely. During an argument, Desmond snatches up her diary and Anna draws a gun on him. She is killed in the ensuing struggle and Desmond absconds with the diary. Anna, however, was mixed up with a gang of international counterfeiters and that diary contains a coded list of their contacts. Helped only by his secretary Jane, Desmond goes on the run and tries to decode the list in his search for answers.

John Gilling directed and co-wrote this chase thriller for Robert B. Baker and Monty Berman's Tempean Films, based on John Mair's novel Never Go Back. It's in the Hitchcock vein of North By Northwest and The 39 Steps and, though it cannot equal those classics (I'm on a lifelong quest to find a film that does), it certainly brings a fair bit of excitement and humour. Larry Parks had starred as crooner Al Jolson in two biopics for Columbia Pictures but, as a communist, he was blacklisted by all the major Hollywood studios and had to come to Britain to find work. He makes for an unmemorable lead here, however, but is supported well by the beautiful Constance Smith. Her character, Jane, is coolly efficient at the top of the film and becomes a plucky and resourceful heroine in the face of danger.

There are a whole bunch of good scenes in this one, including a bit in which Jane is followed on her way to a rendezvous with Desmond and outwits the heavies and even pulls her tongue at them! There's also a tense scene in which Desmond is kidnapped and roughly interrogated. He's up against a couple of old-school English bad guys (Cyril Chamberlain and Alexander Gauge) who are all silky-voiced suavity and chilling politeness ("Battered but unbowed, eh, Desmond? Why don't you speak up and spare us all this unpleasantness?"). He manages to confuse them enough to escape and is chased onto a railway line, where he starts offing the heavies. There's a nice bit of comedy when he hides out in a farm and meets a young Thora Hird (well, younger than we're used to - she was never young-young, was she?).

Until about three-quarters of the way in, I thought I was looking at a four-star film here. Even the comedic sequence in which Desmond is in hospital and apparently suffering with amnesia is good enough. For all that, however, the ending is underwhelming. There's a fight with Desmond and a heavy immediately before it, but there's no sign that it's the final fight. A car chase with the police doesn't feature Desmond, so feels perfunctory. There's a bit of ambiguity in the ending, too, and the message is one of regret, which leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. Nevertheless, this is worth seeing and I think anyone who sat down with this film would have a good time.

Wicked Wife (1953)

Grand National Night

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

There are certain sub-genres of the crime drama which I will diligently seek out. Heist films, prison escape movies and the murder story in which we see who did it and how. 1920s crime fiction writer R. Austin Freeman invented the form and called it the 'inverted detective story'. Columbo, of course, is the most famous example of this format on television while, in film, we have Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder. They're not so much whodunits as will-he-get-away-with-its? and are often headily suspenseful.

This thriller from Nettlefold Studios is slightly different. Racehorse trainer Gerald Coates (played by the always excellent Nigel Patrick) doesn't intend to kill his drunken, mean-spirited wife Babs (Moira Lister). As an accident, therefore, there is no careful preparation and cool-headed problem-solving of the kind Ray Milland or Jack Cassidy had to deal with. In truth, this decision makes the story less dramatic, but it also makes for an interesting change of pace, and ensures the protagonist has our sympathy. It could even be argued that he is the true victim of the piece as the viewers will surely wish they could kill Babs themselves.

The film was previously a radio serial on the BBC and, originally, a stage play by Dorothy and Campbell Christie. Its stage-bound origins are certainly obvious, as most of the action takes place in one large room at the Coates' country estate. Indeed, many such stories, in my experience, do originate on stage. (There seems to be something about watching people die at a very close distance that engages theatre audiences like little else.) There are a few scattered instances in which we go beyond those walls - we visit Aintree racecourse, for instance, there's an all-too-brief moment when Coates tries to evade the police on horseback, and a dreamily atmospheric flashback near the end.

The flashback, in particular, is required as, for most of the film, we are not sure just what has become of the dead wife. Indeed, it appears for a time as though she is still alive, as that is initially what Coates leads everyone to believe.

Things do not seem any clearer when Babs is revealed to have died in nearby Liverpool. Coates tries to keep a diligent detective - played by the legendary Sir Michael Hordern - from discovering that Babs had, in fact, returned to the house before her death.

It is a shame that Nigel Patrick didn't get more starring roles as he was clearly a very dependable actor. He was often cast as suave gentlemen, but I also caught him as a comically hyperactive spiv in 1948's tonally inconsistent Noose (avoid it). Also magnificent was Colin Gordon, a regular face on film and later television, who appears here in an unexpectedly key role. A neat bit of business, involving the two, wraps everything up neatly, making Grand National Night a pleasant and undemanding B-film.

Murder Will Out (1952)

The Voice of Merrill

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

When convicted blackmailer Jean Bridges is murdered, Inspector Thornton of Scotland Yard narrows the list to those suspects who are without alibis: Jean's boyfriend, failing author Hugh Allen; publisher Ronnie Parker, who Jean was blackmailing; and the egotistical and obnoxious playwright Jonathan Roach, who had seen her that day.

Roach suffers with a poor heart, though continues to work and is due to read a series of stories on BBC radio. His dissatisfaction with the stories, however, makes him reluctant to do so and his glamorous wife Alycia suggests that he find someone else to read them instead. She recommends Hugh, who has just become her secret lover. Roach agrees and gives Hugh the pseudonym Merrill. The show becomes a success and, over the many weeks it is broadcast, the public begin to speculate who penned the stories. It is likely that Roach will not live for much longer and Alycia suggests to Hugh that he should claim the stories as his own after her husband dies. The sensation, she believes, will boost his career. However, Roach realises what the pair are up to and devises a plan of his own.

Director John Gilling co-wrote this 1952 film for Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman's Tempean Films. Both would make many B-movies throughout the '50s and this was supposed to be one of them. Though made for £25,000, however, it impressed its distributor enough to be promoted to co-feature status when aired in cinemas. Perhaps the BBC allusions and the A-list talent of Valerie Hobson convinced them that there was more than the usual cops and robbers thriller.

It is certainly easy to forget that it is supposed to involve murder, as much time goes by in which it is not even mentioned and more emphasis is given to the fraud plot involving the radio stories. Indeed, despite the noir-style beginning, most of it plays out like a melodrama and the balance is not always maintained. It does, however, stay within the bounds of the genre and, despite the lack of detecting, the secret romance of Hugh and Alycia is compelling and the character of Roach is as sharply observant as any detective. James Robertson Justice, as Roach, brings his usual gravitas to a role which recalls the other abrasive intellectuals he has given us, mainly in comedies such as Very Important Person, Crooks Anonymous and, of course, the Doctor films.

Despite the witty lines on offer, however, he managers to keep the performance on the right side of comedic. Edward Underdown, meanwhile, is suitably lugubrious as a man who is led by the hand to somewhere he does not want to go. With his quiet suavity, it is easy to imagine the actor in the role of a gentleman detective, like Paul Temple. The character he plays here is tortured both by his conscience and a love for a woman with more nerve than he would even want. He also put me in mind of a young John Le Mesurier.

Valerie Hobson has the showiest part and gets to be everything from cunning, worried, flirtatious and sardonic to desperate, dreamy and hysterical. In one memorable scene, she is visibly conflicted as Roach suffers a heart attack and she considers whether or not she should help or let him die. The actress, though only thirty five, had been in films for twenty years by this point but would soon quit acting and become embroiled in the Profumo affair.

Laughter in Paradise (1951)

Laughter In Paradise

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

Well-known prankster Henry Augustus Russell (Hugh Griffith) has laughed his last, and his four relatives gather for the reading of his will. Unfortunately for them, the only way they can each receive the £100,000 inheritance is do something wildly out of character - and that's a challenge for all of them! Deniston (Alistair Sim), a reluctant writer of James Hadley Chase-style novels, must somehow spend 28 days in prison; Agnes (Faye Compton), a snobbish battle-axe who bullies her staff, must become a maid for a month; timid bank clerk Herbert (George Cole) must hold up his own bank, while serial womaniser Simon (Guy Middleton) must marry the first woman he speaks to.

This British comedy from Italian director Mario Zampi is a feel-good film which, although not hilarious, is nonetheless amusing and at times even touching. The scenes in which Agnes contends with her cantankerous, bedridden employer (John Laurie) make this more of a light drama, and perhaps occupies a little too much of the run-time, but the other strands liven it up. Guy Middleton is excellent as a proto-Leslie Phillips, practically reprising his role from the raucous school comedy The Happiest Days of Your Life (also with Sim). George Cole is convincingly nervous as he prepares to confront his boss with a gun, while Joyce Grenfell does what only she can as Sim's militaristic, yet subtly vulnerable, fiancé of ten years. There's also a fleeting appearance from a very young Audrey Hepburn, who receives an introductory credit. The plot may be simple and familiar, but it made for entertaining Christmas Day viewing on the Talking Pictures TV channel. I must have seen it five times, over the years.

Raffles (1939)

Raffles

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

A gentleman jewel thief who routinely baffles Scotland Yard decides to retire. This is because the thief - really A.J. Raffles, famous cricketer - has fallen in love with a girl called Gwen and has vowed to end his career of safe-cracking. However, when his friend Bunny is unable to pay off his debts, Raffles decides to help by stealing Lady Melrose's necklace. He manages to wangle an invitation to a weekend party she is hosting at her estate and anticipates an easy success. However, Inspector McKenzie attends the party to prevent the theft and another burglary is set to go down the same night...

Today, we're in an era of Hollywood studios remaking films which aren't yet twenty years old. Well, this one certainly kicks them to the curb. This is a remake of a nine-year old film from the same country, same studio, same director and same script. And, as David Niven replaces Ronald Colman, it could even have the same moustache too. But, this isn't a criticism. For one thing, in 1939, they didn't have DVDs (imagine!), so it had been nearly a decade since people had seen the first film. Also, this has David Niven. Also, this has David Niven. Also, this has ... well, it does.

Niven was born to play the role and it's a shame that he didn't make a bigger splash with it. This could easily have been a series, like the Universal set of Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone. Of course, the war happened and Niven, quite honourably, left Hollywood to fight. And maybe the idea would have been redundant, as this was the same year in which the Saint movies started (George Sanders, by the way, did his best to avoid the draft). With his easy charm and suavity, Niven is the best thing about this version. The plot is solid and - though set in a house for most of its run-time - features much of the cosily exciting wandering-around-the-house-at-night stuff that I love so much. It heads towards farce, at points, but you won't read me complaining about that, as it's all so lightly amusing and even quickens the pulse at times. Dame May Whitty (she of The Lady Vanishes - surely one of the best films in the history of moving pictures) plays the dowager-type part of Lady Melrose and there's some mild comedy to be enjoyed with her oafish aristocratic husband who is straight out of a Blandings novel.

The whole thing about giving Raffles a love-interest is non-canonical, as that never happened in the original stories by E.W. Hornung (brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle). In fact, Raffles himself is softer here than he is supposed to be and Bunny's suicide pledge is only alluded to, while it was properly depicted in the story which inspired it. At this point, the character had enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in the British pulp magazine The Thriller, with stories written by Barry Perowne, in which the character was updated to the '30s. This film is also set in those times (though, confusingly, there's a scene in a Victorian hansom cab) and there's even a television, before the invention was really popular.

Unfortunately, this spirited film is marred by a hasty ending which, jarringly, tries to include a daring escape, a Golden Age of Hollywood romantic ending and the obligatory reminder that crime does not pay.

The character would again find success in a 1977 television series for ITV with Anthony Valentine in the role. A one-off adaptation, titled The Gentleman Thief, was aired in 2001 and starred Nigel Havers. It was a role he was surely also born to play but, unfortunately, was not followed up on, and hasn't even had a DVD release. Considering the original books are still in print and remain classics of the genre, it would be great to see them adapted again at some point.

House of Blackmail (1953)

House of Blackmail

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

A foolish young man named Billy Blane has forged a cheque for £200 and is threatened with arrest unless he pays £5,000 to the urbane and wealthy Markham. His artist sister, Carol (Mary Germaine) tries to get him out of it by agreeing to meet Markham in his old country house. On the way, she picks up a good-looking and garrulous hitch-hiker (William Sylvester) who calls himself Jimmy. The radio, meanwhile, speaks of an escaped convict from a nearby prison. Jimmy agrees to accompany Carol to the house and pose as her lawyer in an attempt to unnerve Markham.

There, they meet Markham (Alexander Gauge) and his two associates, an elderly Eastern European doctor (Hugo Schuster) and a sharp-tongued American (John Arnatt), also a Polish maid (Ingeborg von Kusserow) and a seedy, spying butler (Denis Shaw). After some sparring from Jimmy, Carol agrees to pay the money, but is unable to withdraw it from her bank until morning. The pair must remain until then and, with the windows electronically secured, there is no way to escape. During the night, Markham is murdered, and the killer could only have been someone staying at the house...

There is much intrigue and some witty dialogue to be enjoyed in this early fifties B-film, which reveals its small budget with its studio-bound setting and recycled score (at one point, it sounded like something from a Norman Wisdom film!). American William Sylvester is ebullient as Jimmy and, with his mid-Atlantic accent, could well have made an excellent Saint. As usual, Alexander Gauge is wonderfully erudite as the disreputable Markham, another of his reasonable-criminal roles, while the British actor John Arnatt displays a convincing American accent as the man who takes charge. There is also some decent characterisation - for example, with Bassett the butler and his listening at keyholes and room of pin-ups - and much creepy sneaking about, which I always love. Despite the gothic aesthetics, however, this is emphatically a mystery, not a thriller, and a pretty straightforward one at that. It's about the characters' interaction - not wanting to be alone or with any of the others either - and also keeps us guessing as to whether Jimmy is the escaped prisoner or not. The ending is neat, simple and reasonably satisfying, while everything before it is enjoyable too. An average film, of course, but that should be no insult when such things are as fun as this.

Colonel March Investigates (1953)

An Enjoyable Sampler of An Old TV Series

[6/10 · 3 April 2020]

The master of the locked room mystery was, unarguably, John Dickson Carr, one of the most popular crime writers of the Golden Age. His masterpiece, The Hollow Man (1935), retains an almost legendary status among crime fiction fans, but he is now sadly forgotten by the wider public. The books have long been out of print in this country and I'm always hoping that some publisher will bring them back. Perhaps they are so obscure because Carr's most famous sleuths, Dr Gideon Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale, never made it to the screen. One of his lesser characters managed it, however, in the early 1950s, with the television series Colonel March of Scotland Yard.

Carr had used the character only once in his 1940 short story collection The Department of Queer Complaints, in which there is a subdivision of Scotland Yard that specialises in crimes of a curious or apparently impossible nature. The series was financed by the Americans and starred international film star Boris Karloff - most famous for playing the Chinese-American detective Mr Wong and, of course, Frankenstein's Monster. At this point in his long career, Karloff was a frequent guest on American radio series and even had his own show for children in which he read stories and told riddles. In 1952, he returned to England and made three episodes for ITV which acted as pilots for a longer series. Eventually, twenty six were produced, all of which were a brisk 25 minutes long.

The first three made were stitched together for release to cinemas in 1953. This was not uncommon for a TV show at the time and the practice would continue into the next decade, particularly with The Saint. Colonel March Investigates, then, is a taut 70 minute anthology of three slight, though entertaining, mysteries with the twinkly-eyed Karloff. He gives the character an eye-patch, which he didn't have in the stories, but it adds something to the character, as we can imagine he may have lost it in the First World War. This, perhaps, is someone who has witnessed untold horrors and has come to terms with the world by engaging with its more whimsical wonders.

Unsurprisingly, there is a framing device which helps tie the three tales together, in which March stands in his office and inspects a cupboard stocked with souvenirs of his cases before leading the audience into the corresponding story.

The first of these, aired as 'Hot Money', revolves around a bank robbery in which a clerk is incriminated. He follows the criminal to an office, where the money is seemingly stored. However, when the place is searched, the money has apparently disappeared. Despite the clerk being framed in the silliest of ways, the resolution is pretty decent, but nothing too special. Joan Sims appears here in an early role, and March reveals a John Steed-like umbrella sword!

The second story was aired as 'Death in the Dressing Room', which is probably the weakest of the three. Set in a nightclub, it features an exotic dance routine which acts as a clue, while the always reliable Richard Wattis plays the manager. The running time to these is so short that there is virtually no time to set up a number of suspects, so the culprit tends to be the person who has been in it the most. No matter, as it's all about how March gets his man, which he does here in a tense confrontation. As usual, March's sparring partner is the Scottish Inspector Ames (Ewan Roberts), though you wonder why he's there as March seems to be a famous genius.

The third story, intriguingly titled 'The New Invisible Man', features a peeping tom who has apparently witnessed a pair of animated gloves committing murder, and a scene of a crime with no evidence of a crime. It's the best one, I think, though there are a couple of problems. We get the opportunity to see the gloves in action ourselves, but it doesn't look much like the way it's shown to us in the reveal. The trick is good, nonetheless, and it certainly had me baffled. The reason behind it all is pretty shaky, however, and involves stolen paintings and, eventually, a kidnapped March. It's all good fun, though, which is what I'd call the film as a whole. And an interesting peek, as ever, into bygone England. It's just a pity the complete series isn't available.

Gideon of Scotland Yard (1958)

A Humdrum Procedural

[4/10 · 3 April 2020]

I don't always enjoy police procedurals. To me, they're either grim or boring. I was interested, though, in seeing this offering from the late '50s, as such slice-of-life films can lend us a window into another era. Sure enough, we get to see a lot of London in the year of Britain's first motorway, the launch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and - most importantly, of course - Cliff Richard's debut single.

It's a very English film, full of military types with stiff moustaches and even stiffer upper-lips. Despite all the red buses and clear class divisions, however, it was actually directed by the American Oscar-winning director John Ford. After all those gunfights, this must have been quite the change of pace.

The excellent Jack Hawkins plays the stolid and dependable Detective Chief Inspector George Gideon, known as Gee-Gee to his colleagues. A middle-aged, middle-class family man, Gideon struggles to balance his home life with the demands of a high-ranking man of the met. We follow him through a single day, as he discovers that a colleague has been accepting bribes, an escaped mental patient is at large and that a violent gang are stealing payrolls.

Throughout the film, Gideon is reminded that he must return home in time to enjoy tea with his wife's aunt and uncle and accompany them to a concert in which his daughter will be giving a violin recital. In a recurring gag, Gideon is frustrated with a young, officious constable who fines him for running a red light. Such humour is needed, as the mental patient kills a young woman in a sexually-motivated attack and the colleague with the bribes is murdered by the gang.

Based on a novel by John Creasey, one of Britain's most prolific writers, but now forgotten, Gideon's Day is a fairly grim, mundane affair with an episodic structure and a day-in-the-life gimmick which isn't always plausible and often contrived. The situations are clearly harrowing for the Chief Inspector, but his wife doesn't seem to understand. Frustratingly, the film doesn't deal with this and Gideon only ever apologises.

There are some decent actors on the bill: Anna Massey, in her first film, and Cyril Cusack and Laurence Naismith, and a brief role for John Le Mesurier and erstwhile Holmes and Watson Ronald Howard and Howard Marion-Crawford, appearing separately.

It's good to see 1950s London in colour, but there's little else to recommend this one.

The Steel Key (1953)

The Steel Key

[10/10 · 1 April 2020]

International playboy and thief Johnny O'Flynn (Terence Morgan) tries to prevent criminals from stealing a secret formula for processing hardened steel, called the Steel Key, and discovers that one of the scientists involved has been murdered while another, Professor Newman, has died of apparently natural causes. His investigation leads him to a sanatorium, run by one Dr Crabtree, and a captured scientist forced to reproduce the formula. On the way, Johnny meets Newman's glamorous, younger wife Sylvia and rescues Joan Rice, a nurse, after the kidnappers try to kill her. Inspector Forsythe of Scotland Yard is also on the scent, but is intent on arresting Johnny for the crime.

Okay, I'll be honest. Some people say they love a particular film. I'm willing to go further than that. If this film was a woman, I would invite her to the most expensive restaurant in town. I'd buy her flowers. I'd get on bended knee and propose. I've only seen the film once so far but - come on - there's such a thing as love at first sight, isn't there?

But seriously, this one is such a good deal of fun and will probably end up being one of my favourites of the era. It seems explicitly designed to appeal to me and other fans of fun adventure-thrillers in which a suave and witty hero make fools of the police, gets into fisticuffs with the bad guys, joins forces with a plucky heroine and flies by the seat of his pants until he prevents an international conspiracy to ... well, whatever the bad guys are trying to do.

This was originally intended to be a film of The Saint, but producers Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman could not secure the rights to the character. (They would eventually, of course, make a phenomenally successful television series based on the character with Roger Moore.) Its Saintly beginnings, however, remain obvious to all as O'Flynn is considered to be a thief who claims a reward for any boodle he recovers and spars wryly with a portly inspector who would love to put him behind bars. It's basically Simon and Inspector Teal, with all the hijinks that implies.

With his chiselled features, slick dark hair and glint in his eye, actor Terrence Morgan makes for a likable and charismatic hero as Johnny O'Flynn. Amid all the action, there are some good dollops of humour in here too. There is, of course, the constant cat-and-mouse game with the police, but there are also moments which border on farce (never a bad thing, in my book) as Johnny pretends to be one of the scientists involved with Newman. Indeed, nurse Joan never discovers his real name and it is uttered only a handful of times in the whole film. The finger of accusation moves frequently from one suspect to another, but this a pacey adventure and not a drawing room whodunit, though the revelation does come as a surprise. The only criticism I would make is the inclusion of three scientists (one who is only referred to), which seems a bit messy to me. Perhaps it would have been better if Newman alone had been the scientist and the other two helped fund his experiments or held government positions.

Morgan's career started out promisingly with roles in Olivier's Hamlet and Captain Horatio Hornblower with Gregory Peck, but he quickly slid into B-films and became typecast as villains, and though a switch to television with The Adventures of Francis Drake was successful, it did not last. Fortunately, there does not seem to have been an unhappy ending for Morgan, as he left acting to run a hotel in Sussex for many years before becoming a property developer. He died in 2005 at the age of 83. It's a wonder Hollywood didn't want him, but I suppose there were so many other actors out there who could also offer what he had.

Anyway, The Steel Key - see it!

Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958)

One of My Favourite Films

[10/10 · 1 April 2020]

Kimberly Prescott (Anne Baxter) is a young South African heiress of a diamond company living in a Spanish villa. She has had a trying year: her father had committed suicide while her brother, Ward, is believed to have died in a car accident. One night, there arrives a man (Richard Todd) who claims to be her late brother. Kimberly is angry with what she considers to be a distasteful joke. The man is insistent, however, and can back up his claims with photographs and a detailed knowledge of their shared childhood. He swiftly installs himself in Kimberley's villa and into her life, while local inspector Vargas (Herbert Lom) remains confused and concerned. Everyone considers Kimberley to be mad and even she begins to doubt herself. And then she realises her life is in danger.

This 1958 thriller riffs on one of the most intriguing of old chestnuts - the long-lost relative who may be an imposter, which was also the premise to Golden Age writer Josephine Fey's 1949 novel Brat Farrar. Director Michael Anderson gives us a suspenseful, gothic melodrama which keeps the viewers wondering just how it will end. Richard Todd, who had just appeared in Yangtse Incident for Anderson, makes his character casual, creepy and occasionally even considerate, while Anne Baxter remains on the right side of hysterical. She does much of the heavy lifting here, appearing in most scenes, and maintains a difficult balance between anxiety and determination, while never appearing weak. Of particular mention is Herbert Lom, surely one of the most underrated actors of his generation, who remains sympathetic as Vargas. He is intrigued and suspicious, but stymied by Ward's plausible explanations. There's also a quite excellent twist in the tale, which should not be considered too much beforehand.

This was another I saw on the Talking Pictures TV channel, on Christmas Day, and it was better than many current TV offerings. Anyone wanting a cosily creepy evening viewing, in the Daphne du Maurier tradition of clifftop terror, will do well to check this out.

Cash on Demand (1961)

Cash On Demand

[7/10 · 1 April 2020]

With Frankenstein and Dracula as their figureheads, it is easy to forget just how versatile Hammer Film Studios actually were, with comedies, war films and even a couple of Robin Hood movies amongst their filmography. One of their early specialities was the crime thriller, which they focussed on particularly in the 1950s, with a trilogy of Dick Barton films, the last Saint and a Sexton Blake film (which I really, really must find somehow) and it is crime they returned to here.

This low-budget black-and-white effort from director Quentin Lawrence stars a bespectacled Peter Cushing as the prim and pernickety bank manager Harry Fordyce, who is visited at work by an urbane, avuncular and apparently experienced insurance investigator named Colonel Gore-Hepburn (André Morell). It seems to be a routine check on the bank's security, but things turn sour when the Colonel reveals himself to be a bank robber holding Fordyce's family hostage at home. Fordyce is forced to become the Colonel's accomplice and help remove £90,000 from the bank's vault.

Played out in real-time, on just three sets, the film snares the viewer's interest and won't let it go. The irony of a man as authoritative and stiffly regimental as Fordyce being plunged into a situation in which - for once - he has no control neatly demonstrates just how much power he has so instantly lost. In Gore-Hepburn, he is confronted with a ruthlessness just as rigid and impersonal as his own and it is almost as if this Colonel is an even darker version of himself. It is, effectively, the Ghost of Christmas Future who speaks to Fordyce suavely from across his desk and, like Scrooge, he becomes a changed man because of it.

The film's yuletide setting emphasizes this moral - a time of goodwill, spiritual rebirth and the importance of family and friends - but, for me, it could have been clearer just why Fordyce goes on to be so grateful to his staff. They help in a minor way but I think they could have done more if the charity of others is what the filmmakers were pointing towards. However, even if this ending is a little inarticulate, the scenes before it more than compensate. The robbery scenes, in particular, are thrilling and there is reliable support from Richard Vernon and an underused, but always welcome, Norman Bird.

Cushing and Morell had, of course, played Holmes and Watson in Hammer's 1959 hit The Hound of the Baskervilles and much enjoyment comes from watching these two fine actors spar again in what is essentially a two-hander. Morell must have been at particular ease as he had played his character in the television version broadcast several months earlier (under the somewhat anaemic title The Gold Inside). It seems strange today, but many TV series of the time - such as several stories from The Francis Durbridge Serial - would see a film studio recast and reshoot a television production on a slightly bigger budget. Sometimes, this meant seeing the (condensed) material in colour or, at least, on a much bigger screen than the small one in the corner at home. Cushing himself would participate in such a feature when he took on the role of The Doctor (or, more properly, 'Dr Who') in the two Dalek films.

Biographer David Miller wrote in Peter Cushing: A Life in Film that the actor seemed more theatrical and mannered here than usual. I would prefer to think of the performance as intense, which is no surprise as Cushing always gave his all to a role, without any indication of irony. Perhaps he considered it a novelty to play a less than heroic character. Elsewhere, in The British 'B' Film, writers Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane list Cash on Demand as one of the best examples of its kind, calling it, "both tensely compelling and humanely rewarding." Happily, it's on YouTube, so Cash on Demand won't be demanding any cash from us, though it would certainly be worth it.