The Teckman Mystery - film review

The Teckman Mystery is a British film of 1954, directed by the multi-talented Wendy Toye and based on a story by Francis Durbridge, who co-wrote the screenplay.  It's not a Paul Temple story, but the lead character, Philip Chance is another debonair crime writer who finds himself unable to resist poking his nose into a baffling puzzle. Durbridge was never afraid of re-working characters as well as plots...

On a flight from France, Chance (played by John Justin) makes the acquaintance of a young woman called Helen (Margaret Leighton). She happens to be reading one of his books and they start chatting. When he tells her that he's flying home to discuss the possibility of writing a book about a dead test pilot called Martin Teckman, she reveals that she is Teckman's sister. It also emerges that a woman who had been working on the Teckman has died, apparently in an accident.

Once back in London, Chance finds that his home has been burgled, but nothing has been stolen. He is then approached by a mysterious foreigner and offered a vast sum to fly to Berlin and write a series of articles. Can it be that someone wants Chance out of the way, so that he does not make progress with the Teckman book? We can guess the answer to that one, can't we?

There are some recognisable faces in the cast, including Michael Medwin (still fondly remembered as Don, the boss of Eddie Shoestring in that great show Shoestring) and Raymond Huntley. There's also a cameo appearance by Justin's then wife, Barbara Murray. This isn't a Durbridge classic, partly because Justin gives a far from compelling performance, and partly because the story doesn't boast one of his most cunning plots, but it's quite an agreeable time-passer.

Town on Trial - film review

I'm rather surprised to find that I don't seem to have mentioned Town on Trial, one of my favourite Fifties British crime films on this blog before. I first saw, and liked, the movie when I was quite young and I've enjoyed it a number of times since. One new thought occurred to me on the latest viewing the other day was that, in essentials, it is rather like a forerunner of Broadchurch. A tough, troubled cop comes to a small town to investigate a murder, and finds several skeletons in the closets of the locals, who close ranks against him.

Suffice to say that I enjoyed Town on Trial just as much as I enjoyed Broadchurch, although of course the latter benefits from the cliffhangers of a serial, and high quality production values. Taking the role in the film equivalent to David Tennant's in the TV show is John Mills, master of the stiff upper lip, as a cop who fancies the American niece of one of the suspects, a local doctor.

A girl is strangled and Mills soon makes himself unpopular, antagonsing the local Casanova and doyen of the tennis club as well as a number of other worthies. One of them, the repressive father of a pretty young girl who was friendly with the deceased, is played by Geoffrey Keen, who specialised in gruff hard man roles in film and TV for many years. I remember him best from The Troubleshooters, which is going back a very long time. But he also featured in six James Bond films.

The decisive clue to the killer's identity is one that has always stuck in my mind. I don't know a great deal about the screenplay writers, Ken Hughes and Robert Westerby, but the script is smoothly professional and they both did plenty of film work. Mills is as good as usual, but it's sad that Barbara Bates, his love interest, was evidently a troubled woman who later committed suicide. Elizabeth Seal, the young woman desperate to escape the nest, soon gave up acting, which was a pity, but other cast members including Raymond Huntley and Dandy Nicholls enjoyed successful careers. All in all, an entertaining, well-made film -and recognising that similarity to Broadchurch reminds me how fascinated we are by crime in "closed" communities.