The Price of Silence (1960)

The Price of Silence is a 1960 very low budget British crime B-feature staring Gordon Jackson. It was made by a small outfit called Eternal Films which flourished briefly in the early 60s.

Richard Fuller (Gordon Jackson) has just been released after serving a term of imprisonment for embezzling. He’s really a pretty decent fellow. He admits he was guilty although his crime was mostly the result of foolishness and bad judgment rather than greed (he was trying to help a friend out and the friend let him down and left him to face the music.)

He soon discovers that nobody wants to hire an ex-convict. The obvious thing to do is to change his name, which he does (quite legally). That way he might have a chance of making a fresh start. He is absolutely determined to go straight. So Richard Fuller becomes Roger Fenton.

It was a good decision and Fenton quickly lands a decent job. He turns out to have rather a flair for real estate and his boss, the elderly but shrewd and rather kindly H.G. Shipley (Llewellyn Rees), is suitably impressed. Promotion soon follows. There is even perhaps the possibility of being taken on as a partner. Roger Fenton is on the path to both success and respectability.

Things are looking up in regards to his personal life as well. He’s met Audrey Truscott (June Thorburn), a rather charming young lady artist. Wedding bells may not be far off.

There is a minor complication, in the form of Maria Shipley (Maya Koumani). She’s the very much younger wife of H.G. Shipley. She’s a bit of a vamp and she seems to have her sights set on Fenton. Fenton certainly has no intention of getting involved with her. It would be both foolish and dishonourable and Fenton is not a fool. The situation could get awkward but he thinks he can keep the predatory Maria at arm’s length.

Then Slug (Sam Kydd) turns up. This is likely to be a much bigger problem. Slug had been in prison with Fenton and of course knows his real identity.

Slug turns out to be a very big problem. He’s figured out that blackmailing Fenton should be both easy and profitable. Fenton will surely be wiling to pay to keep his past a secret.

There’s obviously the potential for things to get messy. There’s not just the blackmail angle. Fenton has aroused the seething hostility of a local councillor over a shrewd real estate deal. There’s Maria Shipley, the kind of glamorous femme fatale who could get any man into trouble. These are all situations that have been known to lead to murder. Things do get messy and there is a murder but it’s not the murder you might be expecting. Roger Fenton still ends up as the prime suspect and while he thinks he has an alibi he proves to be mistaken. And his prison record is going to make it difficult for him to persuade the police to believe his story.

The screenplay (based on a novel by Laurence Meynell) was written by Maurice J. Wilson who also wrote the excellent 1961 crime thriller The Third Alibi. The Price of Silence isn’t as good but it has a serviceable plot and some reasonable suspense.

The director was the prolific Montgomery Tully who does his usual competent job. Given the very low budget you’re not going to get a shoot-out or a car chase at the end. The budget wasn’t going to allow for anything like that and it’s just not that type of movie. Perhaps the ending could have used a bit more punch but this is a very low-key crime melodrama and the ending is low-key as well.

It’s a movie that is typical of the vast number of very cheap crime B-movies that the British film industry churned out from the late 40s to the early 60s. This was the “quota quickie” era. What’s remarkable is that so many of these cheap British crime flicks are so competently made and so entertaining.

Gordon Jackson is a likeable hero, a sympathetic character who is not without his flaws. His movie career never quite took off but he went on to enormous success on television in Upstairs, Downstairs and The Professionals. June Thorburn is fine as Audrey while Maya Koumani does the vamp thing extremely well - she really does come across as trouble with a capital T. Sam Kydd is deliciously slimy as Slug.

The Price of Silence is available on DVD as one of the films in the Renown Pictures Crime Collection Volume 1 boxed set (a value-for-money set which includes nine feature films). The transfer is acceptable. There is some print damage but it’s not a major problem and we should be grateful to Renown for making such obscure movies available at all, and at very reasonable prices.

The Price of Silence is a solid little movie and it’s good harmless entertainment. Recommended.

Other movies from this boxed set that I’ve reviewed are Passport To Treason (1956) and Death Goes to School (1953, also with Gordon Jackson).