Thunder on the Hill (1951)

Thunder on the Hill (AKA Bonaventure) is a 1951 Universal International movie directed by Douglas Sirk and included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: Dark Side of Cinema 2 Blu-Ray boxed set. The awesome thing about this set is that not a single one of the three movies in it is even remotely film noir. They’re all pure melodramas. That’s not to say that it’s a bad set. It’s actually an interesting set and well worth buying. But noir it ain’t.

It’s not Kino Lorber’s fault. These days almost every movie made in Hollywood prior to 1960 gets labelled as film noir because the marketing people believe that it’s only viable to release old movies on Blu-Ray if they’re labelled film noir. They certainly don’t believe that it’s viable to release melodramas or women’s pictures as melodramas or women’s pictures, which I think is terribly sad. Some of the very best Hollywood movies of the 40s and 50s were seen at the time as women’s pictures but the prejudice against that genre seems to be as strong as ever.

The story takes place in a convent hospital in Norfolk. There have been severe storms and floods and the locals have all taken shelter at the convent. The nuns are barely coping with the problem of housing and feeding so many people. Things start to get interesting when three more people arrive. Valerie Carns (Ann Blyth) is a convicted murderess on her way to Norwich to be hanged the following day. She is accompanied by two guards, one male and one female. Valerie was convicted of giving her seriously ill brother a fatal overdose of his medication.

Sister Mary Bonaventure (Claudette Colbert) is troubled by guilts of her own. She feels responsible for her sister’s death eight years earlier. Sister Mary becomes convinced that Valerie Carns is innocent and she decides to play amateur detective.

The convent is now cut off from the outside world by floodwaters and the phone lines are down. There is one thing that could aid Sister Mary’s detective efforts - most of the people involved in Valerie’s trial are now in the convent.

Sister Mary manages to turn up a clue. It doesn’t prove Valerie’s innocence but it does shed a new light on the case. The really vital clue is quite clever and the way it’s discovered is quite clever.

Sister Mary manages to reach Norwich by boat, thanks to the efforts of the simple-minded, quick-tempered but good-hearted Willie (Michael Pate). She brings Valerie’s fiancé back with her. Now everyone with any connection to the case has been assembled.

Unfortunately the solution is blindingly obvious right from the start so as a whodunit this movie is a total washout. There is some decent suspense. It’s a race against time to save Valerie and the vital clues always seem to be just out of Sister Mary’s reach.

The acting is melodramatic but this is a melodrama so that can be forgiven. Claudette Colbert is good as Sister Mary, a woman with some complexity. She is convinced that she is right but she fears that that is her problem - she always thinks she’s right. Ann Blyth is quite good as Valerie. Gladys Cooper is overly obvious as the evil bitch Reverend Mother. The supporting cast no is no more than adequate although Connie Gilchrist is fun as the dotty Sister Josephine. Gavin Muir manages to be both dull and nasty as the vindictive police sergeant in charge of Valerie.

It’s interesting that all the authority figures in this movie are both vicious and two-dimensional.

Sister Mary is the only character who is even the slightest bit interesting.

The convent setting works very well.

As I hinted earlier there’s not the slightest trace of film noir in this movie. It can’t even be described as noirish or noir-tinged.

Thunder on the Hill tries to be both a mystery and a suspense movie. It’s a failure as a mystery and a reasonable success as a suspense movie. The obviousness of the plot makes it less interesting than it should be. I wouldn’t recommend buying this one had it been a standalone release but if you’re going to buy the set it’s worth a look but don’t expect it to turn out to be a neglected gem.

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

Billion Dollar Brain (1967) is a spy movie directed by Ken Russell, and that in itself is pretty interesting. Russell was a very successful TV director looking to break into movies and this seemed like the kind of obviously commercial property which would aid that project.

It’s also one of the Harry Palmer spy movies starring Michael Caine, based on Len Deighton’s unnamed spy novels, and that makes it even more interesting.

And it’s based on a particularly interesting Deighton novel. It’s rather more extravagantly plotted than the three earlier unnamed spy novels. Which is obviously why it appealed to Ken Russell. It would offer him the opportunity to show what he could do in the way of spectacular visuals.

Since it’s a Ken Russell movie (and even though in this case he was working as a director for hire he still gives the movie a certain Ken Russell flavour) it won’t surprise you to know that not everyone likes this movie. For some spy fans at the time it was a bit too over-the-top. And some Deighton fans thought it was too James Bondian and not Deighton-ish enough. In fact it’s nothing like the Bond films (which by the way I love).

But with Harry Saltzman producing and with Maurice Binder contributing the excellent opening titles I can see why some assumed this was going to be a very Bondian spy movie. In fact that may have been what the producers were hoping for. It does have Bond touches but it has its own distinctive flavour.

Former British spy Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) is now working as a private detective. He’s not doing too well, in fact he’s broke, but at least he’s not working for the government any more. He considers that to be a major plus. And he’s not working for Colonel Ross (Guy Doleman) any more, another plus.

But for some reason Colonel Ross wants him back. Harry isn’t interested.

Harry gets what seems to be a very simple job. All he has to do is deliver a package to Helsinki. The package is a thermos flask. Harry, being a former spy and having a suspicious mind, has the package x-rayed. It contains eggs. Odd. But two hundred pounds is two hundred pounds and Harry needs the money.

In Helsinki he discovers that Leo Newbigen (Karl Malden) is mixed up in all this. Newbigen was a CIA agent and is totally untrustworthy. If Newbigen is involved than it’s something murky. Harry also meets Newbigen’s hot young girlfriend Anya (Françoise Dorléac).

Newbigen is working for General Midwinter (Ed Begley), a crazy Texan billionaire who is conducting a personal crusade against communism.

Harry also runs into Colonel Stok (Oskar Homolka). Stok is a very senior KGB officer. He and Harry are old enemies, but they’re old friends as well. Harry likes Colonel Stok a lot more than he likes his own boss, Colonel Ross.

General Midwinter is totally insane (it’s a fine scenery-chewing performance by Ed Begley) and he’s dangerous. Colonel Stok wants Harry to stop him, and Harry is also inclined to think that stopping General Midwinter would be very good idea. He’s just not sure how to do it. He’s not sure what Leo Newbigen is likely to do and he’s a bit suspicious of Anya after she tries to kill him.

It builds to an extraordinary climax on the ice.

Michael Caine is, as always, perfect as Harry Palmer. Karl Malden is great as the rogue CIA agent. Françoise Dorléac, in her final film rôle before her tragic death, is very good. Vladek Sheybal, a wonderful character actor, is excellent as a mad scientist type working for Midwinter. Look out for Donald Sutherland and Susan George in small rôles.

I can understand why when the studio execs saw the finished film they anticipated problems promoting the movie in America. After all the Soviets are the good guys while General Midwinter’s anti-communist forces are unequivocally the bad guys, determined to start World War 3. I don’t think this is the movie the studio was expecting, which probably accounts for its lack of commercial success. And it was probably just too unconventional spy movie for 1967 audiences.

It’s a movie which is ripe for rediscovery but that’s never really happened. It’s great that Kino Lorber released it on Blu-Ray (and the Blu-Ray looks fabulous) but disappointing that there are no extras. It’s a movie that really needs an audio commentary to put into the context of the careers of both Ken Russell and Len Deighton.

Billion Dollar Brain is an eccentric wildly unconventional spy movie. It’s not in the gritty style of the earlier Harry Palmer movies and it’s not in the Bond style, but it’s also not quite a spy spoof. It’s quirky and original and fascinating, and entrancing once you get into the groove of it. Very highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed the first Harry Palmer movie, The Ipcress File. And I've reviewed the Len Deighton Billion Dollar Brain novel.

Ruthless (1948)

In the early 1930s Edgar G. Ulmer was rising fast until an affair with the wife of a producer ended his career as a director as far as all the top studios were concerned. He spent almost the whole of the rest of his career making very low-budget movies for outfits like PRC, the most poverty-stricken of the Poverty Row studio.

In the 1940s he did however get a couple of opportunities to make movies with reasonably generous budgets. One was The Strange Woman, which his childhood friend Hedy Lamarr hired him to direct. The second was Ruthless, in 1948.

And Ruthless really is a pretty lavish production. Ulmer had real money to play with, and plenty of it.

The parallels between Ruthless and Citizen Kane are obvious but shouldn't be pushed too far.

In 1948 Horace Woodruff Vendig (Zachary Scott) is a fabulously wealthy financier about to launch an ambitious foundation dedicated to achieving world peace. Is it another cynical move, perhaps an elaborate tax dodge, or is Vendig genuinely tying to do something decent for once? His childhood friend Vic Lambdin (Louis Hayward) isn’t sure. Vic has turned up at the launch with his new lady love, Mallory Flagg.

Vendig’s story is then told in flashback.

He had a pretty miserable childhood, with an irresponsible gambler father and an embittered mother who blamed the boy for all her troubles. Then young Horace Vendig got a lucky break. He was out canoeing with Vic and a little girl named Martha. Martha went overboard and almost drowned but Horace saved her. Martha’s parents were so grateful they more or less adopted Horace (which was possible since his mother was keen to get rid of him) and Martha’s dad paid for the lad to go to Harvard. One assumes that the point of the childhood flashback is to explain why Horace Wendig grows up believing that the only way to get what you want is to take it regardless of the consequences and without being constrained by any moral qualms.

The young Wendig also learns how to manipulate women. He and Vic both fall in Martha but there’s never any doubt that if Wendig wants her he’ll get her. Given the appalling way his mother treats him perhaps it’s not surprising that he treats women very badly.

Wendig rises fast in the world of high finance. He tramples a lot of people on his way to the top. He’s clever and unscrupulous and willing to take risks but he also knows how to make use of women in order to destroy men who get in his way.

Wendig approaches relationships with women the way he approaches business. He takes what he wants and when the women is no longer useful to him he discards her, in the same way he would dispose of an unprofitable shareholding. He uses the glamorous Susan Duane (Martha Vickers) as his entreé into New York high society. He uses Christa, the wife of financier Buck Mansfield, as a weapon against her husband.

Vic remains loyal to his boyhood friend for years, refusing to admit to himself that Wendig is a monster. In fact Vic can never quite shake the belief that maybe there’s some good in Wendig.

Alvah Bessie, who co-wrote the screenplay, was a communist and I think it’s fair to say that the screenplay was intended to be a highly political attack on capitalism. I get the impression that Ulmer wasn’t interested in overt political themes and the movie is more of a case study of greed and the lust for power. Mercifully we don’t get a single political speech.

Like The Strange Woman this movie is sometimes mislabelled as film noir. It isn’t film noir at all.

Louis Hayward as Vic is very impressive in what was a rather tricky role. Vic spends years refusing to face the truth about Wendig but somehow Hayward has to convince us that Vic isn’t a fool. He also has to be careful not to allow Vic to come across as a prig. Hayward succeeds on both counts.

Sydney Greenstreet is fine as Mansfield, a very sharp ruthless operator who discovers to his cost that Wendig is just a little bit sharper and more ruthless. Martha Vickers as Susan, Lucille Bremer as Christa and Diana Lynn (in a dual role as Martha and Mallory) are all good. Raymond Burr is fun in a small part as Wendig’s dad.

It is however Zachary Scott’s movie. It’s a bravura performance but there is some subtlety to it. Wendig is almost a conscienceless monster but perhaps not quite. There are moments when he sees himself clearly and isn’t sure he likes what he sees. That doesn’t mean that he acts on these twinges of conscience. He represses them and he seems able to do so very successfully.

When he finally gets to the top of the heap does he suddenly realise that the pursuit of money has left him an empty shell as a human being? Does he suddenly feel the need to make amends, or to seek redemption? That would be a conventional Hollywood approach but one of the things that makes Ruthless such an interesting movie is that Wendig remains an enigma. Is his peace foundation a genuine attempt at redemption? Was inviting all the people he’d trampled to the launch an indication that he felt real remorse about the way he’d treated them? These things are left rather ambiguous. Personally I feel he’s as monstrous as ever and that he’s just added a couple of layers of hypocrisy and self-glorification but others might interpret the ending very differently.

The actual ending comes as a surprise which I won’t spoil. Whether you think it works or not is up to you.

Olive Films released this movie as a barebones Blu-Ray and the transfer is very very good indeed.

Edgar G. Ulmer could make great movies on budgets of almost nothing. Ruthless demonstrates that with a generous budget he could make movies as polished as anyone in Hollywood. Highly recommended.

I watched this movie after reading the fine review at Riding the High Country.

The Tall T (1956)

The Tall T is an early entry in Budd Boetticher’s Ranown cycle, a series of seven westerns all starring Randolph Scott. These are Boetticher’s most admired movies, and with good reason. The Tall T was based on an Elmore Leonard story and the screenplay was written by Burt Kennedy (who wrote most of the films in the Ranown cycle).

The early part of The Tall T establishes an almost idyllic mood. Pat Brennan (Randolph Scott) is a former ranch foreman who now has a spread of his own. It’s not much of a spread, he can’t even afford to hire a single ranch hand, but it’s his own place and he’s happy. He’s confident that he can make a go of it. Brennan is a quiet sort of guy but he’s not by any means a bitter loser or a misanthrope and he’s entirely devoid of self-pity. He’s pretty easy-going and mostly he gets along with people just fine.

Even when he loses his horse and has to walk the fifteen miles to get back home he remains cheerful. It turns out he won’t have to walk. His friend Rintoon gives him a lift. Rintoon drives the stage coach that serves this part of the territory. It’s not a scheduled stage run. A smarmy bookkeeper named Willard Mimms has hired the stage to take himself and his new bride Doretta to a neighbouring town for their honeymoon.

And then the movie switches gears very dramatically indeed, and the idyllic mood gives way to terror and brutality. Outlaw Frank Usher (Richard Boone) and his two goons had been intending to rob the stage coach but when they discover that Doretta Mimms is the daughter of the richest man in the territory a better idea presents itself. They will hold Doretta for ransom. They decide to hold Pat Brennan as a hostage as well.

Brennan has no illusions about his prospects. Usher and his trigger-happy sidekicks Billy Jack (Skip Homeier) and Chink (Henry Silva) have killed four people within the space of 24 hours. Whether that ransom is paid or not it’s a certainty that the gang will kill Brennan and Doretta Mimms. Frank Usher doesn’t believe in leaving any witnesses alive. Usher rides off to collect the ransom money, leaving Chink and Billy Jack to guard the hostages. Brennan figures that he is simply going to have to come up with a way out of this before Usher gets back.

Randolph Scott is excellent as usual. Here he’s playing a nice guy who has to become a reluctant hero and he’s going to need to play it smart and cool and luckily he’s the kind of guy who can do that.

Richard Boone as Frank Usher is perhaps even more interesting as a character. Usher is a bad man but he wasn’t always a bad man and maybe he’s not totally comfortable being a ruthless outlaw. An intriguing relationship develops between Brennan and Usher. At times they almost like one another.

The Brennan-Usher relationship is the core of the movie. There are of course huge differences between the two men but perhaps some similarities. They’re both to some extent loners and outsiders. Maybe Brennan is the man Usher could have been if only he’d had a few breaks. And maybe Brennan is the man Usher would like to be. And Brennan sees Usher as a man who didn’t need to go bad.

Maureen O’Sullivan makes Doretta Mimms an interesting character as well. Doretta is supposed to be dowdy and unattractive, the sort of woman who would be sufficiently lonely and desperate to marry a man she despised. Maureen O’Sullivan had of course been a major glamour babe in the 30s, especially playing Jane in half a dozen Tarzan movies.

The plots of Boetticher’s westerns are not overly complicated. A good story doesn’t need to be complicated. What matters is that Burt Kennedy’s script is tightly constructed and it provides the necessary emotional punches.

Boetticher’s visual style is also never unnecessarily complicated. His compositions are always superb but his visuals are never fussy or gimmicky. Both the script and the visuals are simple and austere and very very effective.

The Powerhouse Indicator Blu-Ray (which I believe is region-free) provides a pretty decent transfer. The extras include an audio commentary by Jeanie Basinger and a brief but excellent introduction by Martin Scorcese. Scorcese makes the point that Budd Boetticher was an obsessive bullfight fan and that his westerns were like bullfights - ritualised formalised combats conducted according to rules and a code of honour. I suspect that Scorcese is correct in seeing this as the key to understanding Boetticher’s westerns. There’s also a radio interview with Elmore Leonard (who liked the movie quite a bit).

The Tall T is quite simply a great western. Highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed several other Budd Boetticher-Randolph Scott westerns - Ride Lonesome (1959), Comanche Station (1960) and 7 Men From Now (1956).

The Female Animal (1958)

The Female Animal was Hedy Lamarr’s last movie. And it’s not at all a bad way for her career to end. She has a really juicy part and she makes the most of it and it’s a very entertaining movie.

Lamarr plays movie star Vanessa Windsor. Miss Windsor deals with the stresses of stardom by having the occasional little drink. And you know how it is. Before you know it you’ve had quite a few little drinks. She’s also just a little bit temperamental. She doesn’t throw tantrums but if she doesn’t feel like doing a retake the retake doesn’t get done. She’s a star and she gets what she wants.

Then comes an accident on the sound stage,. She is almost killed by a falling spotlight. Luckily handsome extra Chris Farley pushes her out of the way, saving her life. The next thing Chris knows he’s on the front page of the newspapers - the man who saved the life of a big-time movie star. It’s all a bit bewildering to him and he’s even more bewildered when he finds himself escorting Vanessa Windsor to a film premiere. After the premiere she invites him to her beach house. She suggests they have a night-time swim but clearly she has other forms of recreation in mind as well.

Vanessa Windsor has fallen head over heels in lust.

Vanessa then realises she needs someone to look after her beach house. A sort of caretaker. She thinks Chris would be ideal. So Chris is now living in a luxury beach house in Malibu. It will be convenient for him, and it will be convenient for Vanessa.

At this point it’s important to stress that Vanessa is not a conniving scheming woman. She’s not a spider woman. Sure she’s set Chris up as a kept man but it’s not like he’s some innocent farmboy who just got off the bus from Iowa. He’s in his mid-thirties and he works in the film business. He knows the score. And Vanessa knows that he knows the score. He’s not the first man to be a paid stud for a female movie star and he and Vanessa are genuinely quite fond of each other. They’re both grown-ups and it’s a peasant setup for both of them. And Vanesa is still a very beautiful glamorous woman. Keeping her happy is likely to be rather a pleasant task. There’s no reason that anyone should get hurt. As long as they don’t actually fall in love, and of course Vanessa does just that.

Then fate steps in. Fate, as so often, comes in the shape of a young woman (played by Jane Powell). Chris sees her in a bar. She’s blind drunk. It’s nothing to do with him but then the guy she’s with turns nasty so Chris has to do the knight in shining armour thing. In the course of the unpleasantness the girl ended up in the gutter and her dress is covered in mud. Like a good knight in shining armour Chris takes her back to the beach house. His intentions really are entirely honourable and nothing dishonourable happens. He cleans the girl up and put her in a cab and sends her home. Everything would be OK except for one little detail that Chris is unaware of. The girl is Vanessa’s adopted daughter Penny.

This really complicates things. Especially when an obvious attraction develops between Penny and Chris. Vanessa knows something is going on with Chris but she doesn’t know about Chris and Penny.

Chris is also starting to feel unhappy about his kept man status. It’s not that Vanesa ever treats him as a mere gigolo. Vanessa has her faults but she would never do anything gratuitously cruel. It’s just an unfortunate fact that Vanessa has lots and lots of money and Chris has none and in the 1950s a man in Chris’s position was going to attract a certain amount of contempt for allowing himself to be kept by a rich woman. It’s something Chris just can’t deal with.

It all leads up to an ending which caught me by surprise.

This movie dates from a time when the studios were starting to find the Production Code to be frustratingly stifling. The studios felt (correctly) that they needed to make movies that were more grown-up. They wanted to be able to tell grown-up stories without the Production Code ripping the guts out of such stories. They wanted to deal with sex in a more adult way. The Female Animal is a prime example of the sort of grown-up movie the studios now wanted to make, and were starting to insist on making whether the Production Code Authority liked it or not. It’s remarkably open about female sexuality. We’re left in no doubt that Vanessa’s initial attraction towards Chris is entirely sexual. It later becomes a deeper and more complex emotion but at the beginning it’s pure sex. And the sexual nature of the relationship between Vanessa and Chris is made very clear.

It’s also surprising that the film is not particularly judgmental about this. Vanesa has sexual needs and she satisfies those needs. It’s not her sexual desires that cause the problems that the various characters have to face. It’s her failure to understand that Chris feels humiliated that causes much bigger problems (Vanessa has a tendency to avoid seeing things she doesn’t want to see) and the biggest problems are caused by Chris’s inability to swallow his pride. And of course it’s the developing romantic triangle that brings things to a head.

Vanessa is a sympathetic character. She has her flaws and she makes mistakes but she’s never malicious. She’s just a human being tying to cope the best way she knows how and she really does genuinely try to make things work with Chris.

I’m not quite sure about Jane Powell as Penny. She chews the scenery a it too much which can be effective in a melodrama but it contrasts unfavourably with Lamarr’s far more subtle performance. Modern audiences will probably feel less sympathetic towards Chris than audiences in the 50s. George Nader’s performance is OK although he does lack star power. Jan Sterling is fun as Lily Frayne, a star whose lustre has faded. Lily has had a string of kept men but unlike Vanessa Lily teats her men as mere sexual playthings.

This movie however belongs to Hedy Lamarr. Her career may have been winding down but her talent was undimmed. She gives one of her best and most nuanced performances. It helps that she was still capable of being very glamorous and very sexy. Vanessa is a fascinating character, made more fascinating by the fact that she doesn’t really understand herself.

The Female Animal also falls into the sub-category of movies that look at Hollywood’s darker side. It’s not a scathing indictment of Hollywood by any means and the occasional moments of satire are subtle. It’s not the wickedness of Hollywood that the movie focuses on, but the air of unreality. Both Vanessa and Penny have lived artificial lives and have had problems when faced with real life.

The movie does have some weaknesses. The major weakness is Penny. Jane Powell was much too old to be playing Hedy Lamarr’s daughter, she was miscast and the part is badly underwritten. Crucially we never find out why Penny is so bitter towards her mother. Vanessa seems to be a caring mother. Perhaps Penny is just a spoilt brat but we still needed to know more about why Penny is so messed-up.

Criticism of this movie are often based on a misunderstanding of the film. One such criticism is that Hedy Lamarr at 43 was too young, too beautiful and too sexy to be a convincing faded star. But this is not Sunset Boulevard. Vanessa is not Norma Desmond. We’re not meant to despise her or pity her. Vanessa is supposed to be a star at the top. There’s also the criticism that Vanessa doesn’t look like she’d need to rely on gigolos. But there are plausible reasons to explain this. With a daughter like Penny to deal with she would have problems forming relationships with men. Vanesa is also a woman who likes to be in control. With her toy boys she’s in control. It also makes the Chris-Vanessa relationship more interesting. Vanessa knows that men don’t have to pretend to be sexually attracted to her so she really doesn’t feel she’s exploiting Chris.

Jan Sterling on the other hand was too young to play Lily Frayne. She does her best but we don’t buy her as a faded has-been (and Lily really is supposed to be a has-been).

This movie has been released in one of Kino Lorber’s film noir Blu-Ray boxed sets. The Female Animal is not film noir. It’s a melodrama. There is no reason to apologise for that. There’s nothing wrong with melodrama. It’s like every other genre. It can be done well or it can be done badly. Here it’s done reasonably well.

The Female Animal is very entertaining grown-up melodrama, even with its flaws. It would be worth seeing anyway but Hedy Lamarr’s performance lifts it into the recommended class.

Port of Escape (1956)

Port of Escape is a 1956 British noirish crime thriller with a nautical tinge.

Mitch Gillis (John McCallum) and Dinty Missouri (Bill Kerr) are sailors who’ve just been thrown off a ship in the port of London after some serious trouble on board. They go to a pub, there’s some trouble there, and later a man is killed. We know that it wasn’t murder, but it’s going to look like murder to the police.

Mitch and Dinty are going to have to get themselves out of the country. They hide out on a barge in the Thames. There are three women on the barge, which has been fitted out as a rather comfortable houseboat. It becomes almost a hostage drama, but not quite.

The older woman, Rosalie (Joan Hickson) is sympathetic. Seventeen-year-old Daphne Mary (Wendy Danielli) doesn’t know what to make of these two rough men. Her older sister Anne (Googie Withers) takes an immediate dislike to Mitch and Dinty. Anne is a bitter woman with a nasty streak.

There’s a launch tied up to the yacht and that’s to be the means of escape for the two men on the run, but they can’t make that escape for a couple of days. In the meantime they have to remain on the yacht and they have to persuade the three women not to do anything foolish and not to give them away to the police. It’s a very tense situation and that situation is the core of the film.

Mitch is an Australian who served in the US Navy and he’s been a gunrunner and undoubtedly involved in other activities of which the law would disapprove. Dinty is excitable and unpredictable and inclined to fly off the handle. We will later learn that there is a reason for this and that Dinty is in fact a victim of very unfortunate circumstances. Dinty hero-worships Mitch. Mitch feels responsible for looking after Dinty since it’s obvious that Dinty cannot look after himself. On his own Dinty would just be an accident waiting to happen.

We’re not very far into the movie before we realise that is has some definite film noir credentials. In fact it has very serious noir credentials, in terms of both visual style and content.

Mitch makes a classic noir protagonist. He’s been on the wrong side of the law and he’s no Boy Scout but there’s a lot of decency in him. He’s not by nature a violent man but now he’s in a real jam and it’s not clear how he can get out of it. On his own he could make it but he would never consider leaving Dinty behind and Dinty is likely to land them both in ever deeper trouble as his behaviour becomes more unpredictable.

There’s no femme fatale but the three women are all important characters, they’re all quite different, and any one of the three could potentially trigger disaster.

Australian actor John McCallum proves to be ideal for such a noirish thriller. He manages to be sympathetic while also convincing us that he could be very dangerous if cornered. McCallum has plenty of screen presence and gives a nuanced performance. We want Mitch to get out of this mess in one piece but we have serious doubts as to whether this will happen.

Googie Withers has McCallum’s real-life wife. She gives a very strong performance. We know that something is eating at Anne but we don’t know what it is. Anne is not at all likeable but she’s a bit more than just a straightforward bitch. Joan Hickson is very good as the sisters’ maid Rosalie.

Anthony Young directed and write the screenplay, from the story Safe Harbour by Barbara S. Harper. Young made a handful of movies before his premature death in 1966. On the evidence of this film he had some ability.

The tension slowly builds as the two men know the police net is closing around them and as the inter-relationships between them and the women become ever more complicated. There’s a sense of looming disaster. There are just so many things that could go wrong, but we don’t know which of the possible disasters will strike. We also don’t know if this is heading towards a happy ending or a downbeat ending (and I have no intention of hinting at the actual ending).

The fact that there’s a title card halfway through announcing “end of part one” and the further fact that it was shot in the 1.37:1 aspect ratio suggests the possibility that this may have been a made-for-TV movie.

This movie forms part of the Renown Pictures’ Crime Collection Volume 4 set. The transfer is satisfactory. There are no extras.

This is a good solid low-key suspense thriller. Recommended.

Blind Spot (1958)

Blind Spot is another one of those totally forgotten British crime B-movies the existence of which you never suspect until you come across them in one of Renown Pictures’ Crime Collection boxed sets. These sets really are like a lucky dip - sometimes the movies turn out to be forgotten treasures and sometimes they’re mediocre. Which category does this one fall into? That remains to be seen.

It certainly has an interesting setup. Captain Dan Adams (Robert MacKenzie) is a young American serviceman stationed in England and as a result of a training accident he’s totally blind. He’s allowed to leave the hospital to go to a party hosted by a fellow officer. The driver drops him at the wrong address - 12 Lindale Square instead of 12 Lindale Avenue. Adams doesn’t need the driver to wait to see him in. He knows where he is and his buddy Joe Kelly will be waiting.

Finding himself at the wrong house would be irritating but there’s worse to come. He falls over a corpse lying on the floor. Then someone slugs him. They leave him unconscious outside 12 Lindale Avenue.

So Adams has stumbled upon a murder. The twist is that Adams doesn’t know that he was dropped at 12 Lindale Square by mistake. He has no idea where this mysterious house was. He tells his story to the cops but they figure that he was just imagining things. It must have been the after-effects of the head injury that left him blind.

We’re only a short way into the movie when we get another plot twist. The blindness was only temporary. Within the next few days the surgeons were intending to perform an operation that would relieve the pressure on his brain, and that should restore his sight. That’s what happens. Adams now has his eyesight back.

But he still doesn’t know where that mysterious house was and he still knows that he discovered a murder and that bothers him a bit.

It isn’t really his business and he isn’t inclined to make it his business until he finds the tie-clip again. He thinks it could be a vital clue and now he’s starting to get obsessed over the mystery.

He follows another lead which leads him to the Brents. Mr Brent (John Le Mesurier) is still mourning the death of his son Johnny in an air crash. Johnny’s sister June (Anne Sharp) thinks that maybe Johnny’s death was a bit suspicious so now Adams has stumbled onto another odd occurrence. He doesn’t think it’s a coincidence.

Then something happens that supplies Adams with a really good motive for continuing to play amateur detective.

As an amateur sleuth he’s reasonably effective. He makes a few mistakes because he trusts the wrong people but he’s persistent and he has a suspicious mind.

Director Peter Maxwell made very few feature films but did a huge amount of TV work in various places, especially Australia. I can’t really fault the job he does here. The pacing is brisk and there’s some decent suspense, and a bit of action.

Robert MacKenzie’s career amounted to very little. In this movie he’s a bit bumptious but that fits the character.

The supporting cast is very competent. Appearing in a minor rôle is a young at that time totally unknown actor by the name of Michael Caine. I wonder if his career ever amounted to anything?

This is another competent B-movie produced by Robert S. Baker and Monte Berman, later to enjoy great success as producers of The Saint TV series. In this case the original story was apparently Baker’s.

Blind Spot is one of the nine movies in the Renown Pictures’ Crime Collection Volume 4 set. They’ve also released this one individually. The transfer is widescreen 16:9 enhanced and it’s quite satisfactory. There are no extras.

Blind Spot is just a typical British B-feature of its era but it has enough plot twists to keep the viewer interested and some suspense and it’s a perfectly competent production. I’m a fan of these low-budget British crime potboilers and I enjoyed this one. Recommended.