My Death is a Mockery (1952)

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Hanged for a lamb?
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UK / 65 minutes / bw / David Dent, Adelphi Dir: Tony Young Pr: David Dent Scr: Douglas Baber Cine: Phil Grindrod Cast: Donald Houston, Kathleen Byron, Bill Kerr, Edward Leslie, Liam Gaffney, Kenneth Henry, Felix Felton, Sheila McCormack, Christopher Quest, Michael Voysey, Vincent Holman, Meadows White, Christmas Grose.

An extremely neat little movie, obviously made on a very tight budget, that uses its small cast, simple plot and limited resources to excellent effect. It’s linked tangentially to a celebrated real-life murder (or was it?) case that played a major role in the United Kingdom’s eventual abolition of the death penalty.

Donald Houston as John Bradley.

John Bradley (Houston) served during WWII in the Royal Navy and continues his love affair with the sea by running a trawler with his wife Helen (Byron) and crew Jim (Grose) and Stan (uncredited). However, the business is failing fast and, having laid off the two crew members, he heads to London to try to

Return from the Ashes (1965)

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After her return from the death camps, does her unscrupulous husband want to love her . . . or kill her?
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UK, US / 107 minutes / bw / Mirisch, UA Dir & Pr: J. Lee Thompson Scr: Julius Epstein Story: Le Retour des Cendres (1961) by Hubert Monteilhet Cine: Christopher Challis Cast: Maximilian Schell, Samantha Eggar, Ingrid Thulin, Herbert Lom, Talitha Pol, Vladek Sheybal, Jacques Cey, Jacques Brunius, Eugene Keeley.

Occupying the same sort of territory as The THIRD MAN (1949), this is the first of—to date—three screen adaptations of Monteilhet’s novel. The other two are:

• Le Retour d’Élisabeth Wolff (1982 TVM) dir Josée Dayan, with Malka Ribowska, Niels Arestrup, Clémentine Amouroux and Roland Bertin, and
• Phoenix (2014) dir Christian Petzold, with Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld and Nina Kunzendorf.

The latter is covered here.

It’s the winter of the liberation of France from the loathed Nazi occupation. Aboard a train bound for Paris, a disobedient small boy, Robert (Keeley), opens the door and falls out into the night and presumably his doom. All of the passengers in the compartment are distraught, save one. The woman in the corner (Thulin) seems completely unmoved by events. The others are prepared to be critical of her until they notice the numbers tattooed on her forearm; she’s a Jewish survivor of the concentration camps, and her seeming imperturbability is born not from heartlessness but from traumatic alienation and the crude reconstructive surgery that’s been done on her face.

Arriving in Paris, she books herself into a cheap hotel under the name Julia Robert, even though, as the desk clerk (Cey) points out, according to her papers her name is Michele Wolff-Pilgrin. She tells him she wishes to hide under an assumed name for a while . . .

 The Michele we first meet (Ingrid Thulin) bears the scars of her ordeals.

Soon, in a prolonged flashback, we learn her story—and that the face she now bears is not the one she had a few years ago, before the torment of the camps and a clumsy reconstruction job after injury.

A widow, by the latter half of the 1930s she was working as a successful X-ray clinician in a Paris hospital. From her late husband she inherited a stepdaughter, Fabienne, whom she rarely saw, just shuffling her around from one English boarding school to another.

One night at her local chess club Michele ran into the impoverished would-be professional chess player Stanislas “Stan” Pilgrin (Schell), who took her for three games of chess to the tune of ninety francs. Later that night, even though she recognized he was a scoundrel, she

Two Wives at One Wedding (1961)

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No, it’s not an Ealing comedy as the title might suggest. Instead it’s a Brian Clemens thriller, with many of his usual quirks.
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UK / 64 minutes / bw / Danziger, Paramount Dir: Montgomery Tully Pr: Edward J. Danziger, Harry Lee Danziger Scr: Brian Clemens, Eldon Howard Cine: Bert Mason Cast: Gordon Jackson, Christina Gregg, Lisa Daniely, André Maranne, Humphrey Lestocq, Viola Keats, Douglas Ives, John Serret, Annette Carell, Steve Plytas, Gertan Klauber, Michael Anthony, Julian Sherrier, Andre Charisse.

Rising physician Tom Murray (Jackson) is celebrating his marriage to Christine “Chris” Ervine (Gregg) when an unexpected guest arrives at the reception: Annette Montand (Daniely), whom Tom knew during his time as an ambulance driver in Normandy during the war. Once they’re alone she drops her bombshell: Tom married her in France and, even though the event is lost to the weeks of amnesia he suffered after being shot up in August 1944 by the Gestapo, she has a marriage certificate and other evidence to prove it:

Annette: “It was not a gay ceremony.

Killer Walks, A (1952)

UK / 55 minutes / bw / Leontine, Grand National Dir & Pr & Scr: Ronald Drake Story: Gathering Storm (1948 play) by Gordon Glennon, itself based on Envy My Simplicity (1943) by Reyner Barton Cine: Jack Asher, Phil Grindrod Cast: Susan Shaw, Laurence Harvey, Trader Faulkner, Laurence Naismith, Sheila Shand Gibbs, Ethel Edwards, Valentine Dunn, Madge Brindley, John Ainsworth.

On a farm somewhere in England lives the malfunctioning Hardlestone family. Head of it is the intimidating Gran Elizabeth Hardlestone (Edwards), an elderly termagant who frostily admits a soft spot only for her GP, Doctor James (Naismith), and for her younger grandson, Frankie (Faulkner).

So far as Gran’s concerned, Frankie seems to be doing all the right things: he’s fallen in love with lovely local farmer’s daughter Brenda (Shand Gibbs), he has a great way with the animals—even including the bull Trigger, whom no one else can handle—and, if he happens to be a bit of a simpleton, so far as Gran’s concerned that’s a commendable trait as well.

Brenda (Sheila Shand Gibbs) and her mum (Valentine Dunn) watch Frankie (Trader Faulkner) save a cow.

On the other hand, she worries a lot about her older grandson, Ned (Harvey). He has a history of violent behavior toward the

Out of the Shadow (1961)

vt Murder on the Campus
UK / 60 minutes / bw / Border, New Realm Dir & Scr: Michael Winner Pr: Negus Fancey Cine: Richard Bayley Cast: Terence Longden (i.e., Terence Longdon), Donald Gray, Dermot Walsh, Robertson Hare, Diane Clare, Felicity Young, Edwin Styles, Douglas Muir, Jill Hyem, Max Faulkner, Tony Thawnton, Laura Thurlow, Geoffrey Ryan, Ann Sharp, Harold Siddons, Mark Eden, William Ingham, Bill Mitchell.

The third feature movie of Michael Winner’s long and highly prolific directorial career, this potboiler rarely rises above the mediocre. Its opening credits even manage to misspell the name of its leading man (Longden for Longdon); in fact, there isn’t a proper cast list.* The best one can say of the movie is that it reads rather like one of Merton Park’s lesser and more hurried offerings (in fact, it was made at Marylebone Studios); however, like the Merton Park pieces, it somehow manages—despite its stodgy directing and often very flat, uninspired acting—to be quite pleasing to watch.

Journalist Mark Kingston (Longdon) was out of the country when, two weeks ago, his younger brother Tony (uncredited), an undergraduate at the fictional Leicester College, Cambridge, fell from his high rooms in the college into the river Cam, and died. The coroner returned an open verdict; the cops believe it was either accident or suicide, and have closed their investigation. Of course, Mark doesn’t believe one word of that, so as soon as he’s checked in with his boss, Jimmy (Siddons), at the news agency, he heads for Cambridge, booking a room at the Regent Hotel and making a general pest of himself.

Tony Kingston (uncredited) interrupts the killer (Douglas Muir).

A couple of the students at the college tell Mark they did see a man walking on the roof the night that Tony died. Mark learns this when

Nightmare (1942)

US / 81 minutes / bw / Universal Dir: Tim Whelan Pr & Scr: Dwight Taylor Story: Philip MacDonald Cine: George Barnes Cast: Diana Barrymore, Brian Donlevy, Henry Daniell, Eustace Wyatt, Arthur Shields, Gavin Muir, Stanley Logan, Ian Wolfe, Hans Conried, John Abbott, David Clyde, Harold de Becker, Ivan Simpson, Keith Hitchcock, Lydia Bilbrook, Pax Walker.

Gambler Dan Shane (Donlevy), homeless while waiting in London during the Blitz for the chance to take a boat home to sign up for the US armed forces, opportunistically enters the servants’ quarters of a house in Crescent Gardens that he believes to be empty, and purloins a couple of eggs for a meal.

But the house isn’t empty. Suddenly he’s confronted by the occupant, pretty young Leslie Stafford (Barrymore), who makes him a deal: if he’ll somehow remove the just-discovered body of her murdered husband, Captain Edgar Stafford (Daniell), from the house, she’ll

Double Exposure (1954)

UK / 61 minutes / bw / Kenilworth–Mid-Century, Rank Dir & Scr: John Gilling Pr: Robert S. Baker, Monty Berman Story: John Roddick Cine: Monty Berman Cast: John Bentley, Rona Anderson, Garry Marsh, Alexander Gauge, Ingeborg Wells, John Horsley, Doris Hare, Eric Berry, Frank Forsythe (i.e., Frank Forsyth), Ronan O’Casey, Alan Robinson, Ryck Rydon, Sally Newton.

Barbara Leyland (Anderson) is a freelance “photo background designer”: she goes around photographing scenes onto which foreground images can be placed for the purposes of advertising. (Think Photoshop, but far clunkier.) One of her clients is Clayton Advertising, where she works with a chief designer called Jones (O’Casey). The company’s owner, Denis Clayton (Gauge), described as “MD of Clayton Advertising, Chairman of Clayton Textiles, Director of Self Finance and a racehorse owner,” has a little problem, as we soon discover: his estranged wife Laura owns the bulk of his various companies, and is in the process of selling them out from under him.

That problem disappears the day—October 4—that Laura plunges to her death from her sixth-floor window in a London street called Galway Court. Accident? Suicide? The cops decide

Silent Dust (1949)

UK / 82 minutes / bw / ABPC, Independent Sovereign, Pathé Dir: Lance Comfort Pr: Nat A. Bronsten Scr: Michael Pertwee Story: The Paragon (1948 play) by Roland Pertwee and Michael Pertwee Cine: Wilkie Cooper Cast: Sally Gray, Stephen Murray, Derek Farr, Nigel Patrick, Beatrice Campbell, Seymour Hicks, Marie Lohr, Yvonne Owen, Maria Var, James Hayter, George Woodbridge, Edgar Norfolk, Irene Handl.

It’s a few years after the end of WWII, and Robert Rawley (Murray), a self-made millionaire (or thereabouts), cannot get over the fact that his beloved son by his first marriage, Simon, was one of those who never came back from the Front. Now he’s building a new cricket pavilion in the nearby village to commemorate Simon—even though his bumbling aristocratic neighbor, Lord Harry Clandon (Hicks), urges him to alter the dedication to honor not just Simon but all of the local men who died in the war, as does Robert’s second wife, Joan (Campbell), née Cummings,

Robert: Man can’t live with the dead.
Joan: No. But how hard you try.

Robert is a man whose snarl is very much worse than his bite. We see this essential goodheartedness in an early sequence when he’s informed by the foreman of the team working on the pavilion, Sugden (Woodbridge), that one of the laborers has fallen off the construction, damaging both the weathercock and himself. Robert rants about the lad’s stupidity and clumsiness and the fact that the broken weathercock might delay the Grand Opening, but at the same time he slips Sugden a hefty contribution to any medical expenses the culprit might have—more than enough to cover them all, if we’re to judge by Sugden’s expression.

The blind but undaunted Robert (Stephen Murray).

We first become aware that Robert’s blind when he trips over the tricycle that Clandon, who has come to visit, left at the steps of the mansion. Since we’ve earlier seen the Rawleys arrive home in a luxury car, it’s very clear how

Rossiter Case, The (1951)

UK / 74 minutes / bw / Hammer, Exclusive Dir: Francis Searle Pr: Anthony Hinds Scr: Kenneth Hyde, John Hunter, Francis Searle Story: The Rossiters (1947 play) by Kenneth Hyde Cine: Walter Harvey Cast: Helen Shingler, Clement McCallin, Sheila Burrell, Frederick Leister, Henry Edwards, Ann Codrington, Dorothy Batley, Gabrielle Blunt, Eleanor Bryan, Ewen Solon, Robert Percival, Dennis Castle, Frederic Steger, Stanley Baker, Anthony Allen.

Everyone is colluding to hide it from Liz Rossiter (Shingler), gravely paralyzed ever since a car accident, that her husband Peter (McCallin) is having an affair with her superbitch sister-in-law, Honor (Burrell), the widow of Peter’s brother Christopher. (Most of the time, just as Liz is called “Mrs. Peter,” Honor is called “Mrs. Christopher.”) Complicit in this conspiracy of silence are Peter’s mother, Marty (Codrington), the old family GP, Dr. John “Ben” Bendix (Edwards), the maid Alice (Blunt), Liz’s nurse Westy (Batley), and even Sir James Ferguson (Leister), the specialist called in from London by Bendix to see what if anything can be done to cure Liz; Sir James dropped by the local pub, The Oak, to ask directions and saw Peter there with Honor.

Liz (Helen Shingler) undergoes Sir James’s medical tests.

Scarlet Web, The (1954)

UK / 63 minutes / bw / Fortress, Eros Dir: Charles Saunders Pr: Frank Bevis Scr: Doreen Montgomery Cine: Hone Glendining Cast: Griffith Jones, Hazel Court, Zena Marshall, Robert Perceval, Molly Raynor, Ronald Stevens, John Fitzgerald, Stuart Douglass, Robert Moore, Gail Kendal, David Stoll, Michael Balfour, Katie Stuart, Judith Nelmes, Leo Phillips.

“Jack Warren” (Griffith Jones) emerges from prison.

When he’s released from jail after a three-month stretch for breaking and entering, Jack Warren (Jones) finds a beautiful stranger (Marshall) waiting for him. She offers him a lift to London and he accepts. En route she tells him that she’s been searching for a thief to recover a letter that’s being used to blackmail her husband, financial consultant Charles Dexter (Perceval).

What she doesn’t know is that “Jack Warren” is really insurance investigator Jake Winter, and that the time he spent inside was in pursuit of a case. What he doesn’t know is that she’s not Mrs. Dexter; we eventually learn she’s