Night Was Our Friend - 1951 film review

Night Was Our Friend is a rather good British B-movie which dates from 1951. The script was based on a play, though the film isn't as irritatingly stagey as so many movies based on plays tend to be. And despite the fact that most of the story is told via an extended flashback, that isn't as unsatisfactory as is so often the case. Both play and screenplay were written by Michael Pertwee, brother of Jon and uncle of Sean, and he did a good job.

The story begins with a young woman on trial for murder. The case is a sensation, and when we see the jury debating their verdict, it's clear that the outcome is far from straightforward. In the end, however, the result is decided - and the woman is acquitted. She is then immediately confronted by the unhappy mother of her dead husband, who clearly believes her to be guilty. And then the man she really loves proposes to her, only for her to tell him that she did, in fact, murder her husband.

This is where the flashback begins. Sally (Elizabeth Sellars) is in love with Dr Harper (Ronald Howard) when unexpected news arrives. Her husband Martin (Michael Gough), who two years ago went missing presumed dead after a plane crash in South America has turned up alive! The couple are clearly not thrilled, and it's apparent that Martin was a difficult man to live with. But they do the decent thing, and Sally welcomes Martin back with open arms.

Alas, all is not well with Martin. His two years in the jungle didn't agree with him, and he's mentally disturbed, but refuses to undergo any treatment. He develops a habit of going on nocturnal prowls, and when he's involved in a serious incident, matters come to a head....

This is a well-made film, unpretentious and watchable to this day. Gough, as you'd expect, does a very good job in an unsavoury role. I enjoyed it.

Blanche Fury - 1948 film review

Blanche Fury, a 1948 historical melodrama starring Stewart Granger and Valerie Hobson, was based on a book of the same name by Joseph Shearing published nine years earlier. The Shearing pseudonym was used by Marjorie Bowen, a highly prolific and undoubtedly accomplished writer, and the Shearing stories were typically based on real life historical cases. For instance, Airing in a Closed Carriage is based on the Maybrick case.

Blanche Fury was inspired by a real life case rather less well-known than the Maybrick case, although quite notorious in its day. This was the double murder at Stanfield Hall in Norwich in 1848, when a father and son were shot dead by a tenant farmer. The details of the case are significantly changed in the film, not least in the transposition of the setting to Staffordshire, but perhaps the most significant change is the focus on the title character, played by Hobson.

Blanche is a strong woman, well-born but poor, who yearns for position and affluence. She is doing drudge work as a companion when she's contacted by Simon Fury, who wants her to come to Clare Hall, and look after his grand-daughter, Lavinia. Lavinia's father is played by Michael Gough, and he takes a shine to Blanche. But so, unfortunately, does the much more charismatic Philip Thorn (Granger) who believes he is the rightful owner of Clare, and has been denied his inheritance by the unfairness of the laws on illegitimacy.

There's a doom-laden feeling to the story, which proceeds at a sombre pace. By modern standards, the presentation of a gang of villainous gypsies seems like a classic example of unpleasant stereotyping, but leaving that issue aside, the story is quite a good one. It is, as I say, more of a melodrama than a murder mystery, but it's quite watchable The script was co-written by Audrey Erskine Lindop, who would later write I Start Counting, a novel which also became a successful film..