Act of Murder (1964)

Act of Murder is a late (1964) entry in the British Merton Park Studios Edgar Wallace B-movie cycle.

The film plunges us straight into a romantic triangle. Actress Anne Longman (Justine Lord) quit the theatre to marry Ralph Longman (Anthony Bate). This did not please Tim Ford (John Carson). But given that Ralph is charming, civilised and rich and Tim is a whiny loser actor she probably made the sensible choice.

Anne and Ralph live in a farmhouse in the country. They are planning a holiday. They are going to swap houses with a very nice middle-aged couple in London. They’re looking forward to a couple of weeks in a luxury London flat.

The plot twists start early in this movie and they keep coming, and they’re clever and unexpected. Which means I’m not going to tell you anything at all about the plot, other than the fact that there are lots of things that are not what they seem.

Lewis Davidson’s screenplay really is impressive.

At first the plot twists are just odd and puzzling. Then they become creepy and disturbing.

We know that someone has some kind of devious plan but we have no idea which of the main characters that someone might be.

There’s a mystery here but we’re also in psychological thriller territory.

We can think of an obvious solution to part of the mystery but that leaves some nagging questions unanswered.

The paranoia level slowly builds.

Like most of the directors involved in this cycle of films Alan Bridges worked mostly in television but he did a few feature films including the rather good slightly offbeat 1966 science fiction movie Invasion. He does a pretty nice job here. Act of Murder has just a bit more style and polish than you expect in a low-budget movie, with interesting camera angles and a few welcome visual flourishes.

Anthony Bate and John Carson were always reliable actors and they’re both very good here, as is Justine Lord. All three leads manage to be ambiguous, which is exactly as it should be. None of them play their roles as obvious villains, but they don’t play them as paragons of virtue either. All the characters, including the minor characters, are to some degree morally compromised.

I don’t think any of these Edgar Wallace B-movies could possibly be described as film noir but this one does perhaps have just the faintest noir tinge.

There’s also an almost-nude scene which was about as daring as you could be in Britain in 1964. There’s definitely plenty of sexual tension.

Act of Murder is a very well-crafted above-average crime melodrama B-movie with a pleasingly hard-edged nasty streak to it. Highly recommended.

Act of Murder is included in Network’s Edgar Wallace Mysteries volume 6 DVD boxed set. These wonderful boxed sets are unfortunately becoming a bit hard to find now but if you come across them grab them. The 16:9 enhanced transfer (these movies were all shot in black-and-white and widescreen) is very nice.