The Limping Man - 1953 film review

If you google The Limping Man, you're sure to come across discussion of the film's ending. Almost every commentator I've read has deplored the ending, and I have to say that I agree. It's dreadful. The only sensible advice is not to take it into account in deciding whether to watch the film - it didn't affect my choice, as I knew nothing about it before taking a look. And overall, it was worth watching, as an average British B-movie of the 50s.

There was a common practice in those days of including American actors in leading roles in British movies for commercial reasons. Here, the star is Lloyd Bridges. He's travelling to the UK on a plane, to reunite with the woman he loves after six long years. Once he gets out of the plane, he offers a light to a fellow passenger. And then the other guy is shot by a marksman.

Our hero is grilled by the police, played by the reliable Alan Wheatley and that eternal Lothario Leslie Phillips. He's reunited with his girlfriend Pauline (Moira Lister), who seems oddly distant. The deceased, he is told, was a bad lot called Kendal Brown. Alas, it emerges that Kendal was mixed up with  Pauline. And she wrote him some compromising letters. Tantalisingly, it seems that the content of those letters could result in her being sent to prison. However, we are never given further particulars.

There are some good actors in the supporting cast, including Rachel Roberts and a very young Jean Marsh. Lionel Blair also appears. The screenplay is based on a novel called Death on the Tideway by Anthony Verney. I've not been able to find out anything about this, and I just wonder if it was a short story rather than a novel. At all events, it's not a bad story. But that ending...

Sleeping Car to Trieste - 1948 film review

Sleeping Car to Trieste, first screened in the aftermath of the Second World War, when international tensions were still running high, is a remake of a film called Rome Express, written by Clifford Grey, which I haven't seen. But it has a real freshness even now, and I found it very entertaining indeed, even if it didn't give viewers much of a picture of Trieste itself, since all the action is done and dusted by the time the train gets there!

The story begins with a robbery and a shooting. A diary is stolen from an unidentified embassy in Paris; the thief is in cahoots with a woman (Jean Kent) who fears that the diary, if it falls into the wrong hands, will lead to revolution. Unfortunately, the pair have opted to conspire with a villain (played by Alan Wheatley, better known as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood) who proceeds to run off with it, and take the train to Trieste. They follow him, but find it difficult to figure out which compartment he's staying in.

The strength of the screenplay by Allan Mackinnon lies in the clever use of a range of characters on board the train who each play a part in an increasingly convoluted storyline. The diary is a Macguffin in the finest Hitchcockian tradition. The guy who has taken the diary hides it, only to be forced to move out of his compartment. A lawyer who is on the train with his girlfriend finds himself mixed up in it all, and the tension mounts before, eventually, murder is done.

There are plenty of nice comic touches, and John Paddy Carstairs' direction reminded me of Hitchcock's. He keeps the action going, and the use of comic minor chatacters, such as the lawyer's tedious and thick-skinned old friend (David Tomlinson) and the long-suffering secretary (Hugh Burden) of a vain and selfish author (Finlay Currie). So it's a good cast, and an even better story. Most enjoyable.

The House Across the Lake - 1954 film review

I didn't know what to expect when I settled down to watch a British crime film from 1954. But The House Across the Lake turned out to be set around Windermere, and featured a struggling crime writer as the conflicted protagonist. Needless to say, this premise grabbed my attention right away!

Alex Nicol plays Mark Kendrick, an American writer based in the UK (for unexplained reasons) who rents a place in the Lakes as he tries to meet a deadline for his latest book. He encounters a blonde femme fatale, also played by an American, Hillary Brooke. She happens to be married to a rich man - played (rather to my amazement) by Sid James, in a rare straight role. She's well-known for dallying with other men, and Kendrick befriends the husband but becomes besotted by the wife - rather surprisingly, since the husband's daughter from an earlier marriage, played by Susan Stephen, seems much more appealing.

Anyway, we are in classic film noir territory here. The storyline owes a great deal to Double Indemnity, although it's based on a book called High Wray by Ken Hughes, who directs the film (and later directed many others, including Chitty, Chitty, Bang Bang). Although it's not very original, it's well done, at least until the very rushed finale, which I found anti-climactic.

There's fun to be had in spotting the other cast members -including Joan Hickson, Paul Carpenter, John Sharp, and Alan Wheatley (later famed as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood). I hoped the titular house would prove to be Wray Castle, which I enjoyed visiting a few years back, but it wasn't to be. However, I did enjoy this short film. Definitely worth watching. Why was it called Heat Wave when released in the US? Your guess is as good as mine.