The Narrowing Circle - 1955 film review

I first read Julian Symons' novel The Narrowing Circle when I was a teenager, but until recently I was unaware that in 1955 it was filmed. The screenplay was written by Doreen Montgomery, a very experienced writer for film and television, who is said to have created the character of Emma Peel for The Avengers.

The novel is a good example of post-war psychological suspense fiction. Symons was one of the British pioneers in this field, although his fiction is much less well-known than that of Patricia Highsmith,the legendary American writer, whose work he much admired. The story charts the battle of wits and wills between writer Paul Nelson and the relentless Inspector Crambo.

The film is more conventional, and in terms of both plot and style, it owes almost as much to that Cornwell Woolrich classic Phantom Lady as it does to Symons' novel. A colleague of Nelson's wins promotion at Nelson's expense, and for good measure nicks Nelson's girlfriend. When he is found dead in Nelson's apartment, Nelson relies on an alibi. He'd gone off to drown his sorrrows, picked up a prostitute, and spent the night in a seedy hotel. But when Crambo checks the alibi, the chap at the hotel denies all knowledge of Nelson, and the girl cannot be found.

The story is told with some pace, which compensates for the flimsiness of one or two of the plot twists. I don't know what Symons made of it, though I suspect he wouldn't have been thrilled by its lack of subtlety. But it's a perfectly watchable British B movie, with Paul Carpenter as Nelson and Hazel Court as a woman who falls for him and then helps solve the mystery, with such stalwarts as Basil Dignam, Russell Napier and Ronnie Stevens in the cast.

The Hypnotist - film review

The Hypnotist is a 1957 British film, which in the US was given the title Scotland Yard Dragnet. I don't think The Hypnotist is an ideal title, but the American alternative is terrible. Thankfully, the film itself is pretty good. It doesn't seem excessively stagey, even though it was based on a play by Falkland Cary, who apparently was an obstetrician before he turned to delivering work for the theatre.

Paul Carpenter plays Valentine Neal, who is involved in a flying accident and suffers an inexplicable psychological trauma as a result. His fiancee, Patricia Roc (who was a very celebrated actress in her day) finds the medics stumped by his condition, so she seeks help from a family friend, Dr Pelham (Roland Culver) who is an expert on getting to the root of psychological problems.

The murder mystery that develops from there is straightfoward in some respects,but I felt that the director, Montgomery Tully, made pretty good use of the material. Admittedly, an interlude in which our hero loses his memory and gets involved with a pretty girl he meets in a jazz club seemed more like a commercial for Chris Barber's Jazz Band than something that contributed to the plot, but the story held my attention better than many with a much bigger budget.

In researching the film, I found that Carpenter, sadly, died quite young and in rather tragic circumstances. On this evidence, he wasn't a top-notch actor, but I see that he took a lead role in a film of Julian Symons' The Narrowing Circle - a book that I didn't know had been filmed. Sadly, no DVD appears to be available. I assume it sank without trace, but if anyone knows anything about it, do please let me know.

One actor I did recognise was William Hartnell, who played the Scotland Yard cop in his customary grumpy manner. A few years later, of course, he would achieve a kind of immortality by becoming the very first Doctor Who.

John J. Walsdorf and Julian Symons

The relationship between writers and their readers is a fascinating subject in itself. Like most authors, I enjoy meeting readers at events and I’m always pleased when people who have enjoyed my books send me an email or come up to say hello at a convention. John J. Walsdorf was a reader who became so enamoured of the writing of Julian Symons that not only did he get to know him well, he went so far as to produce a very impressive bibliography of this prolific writer – based on a massive collection that he compiled.

Since I, too, am a Symons fan, I bought the book some time ago, but because it seemed a bit dry of first inspection, I did not study it closely until the other day. I then discovered that, among all the (to my mind) slightly tedious, though impeccably researched, bibliographic detail, are some nuggets of information about Symons and his work – just as I hoped when I sought out the book.

Symons’ typically intelligent and incisive autobiographical notes are fascinating to read. I didn’t know, for instance, quite how friendly he was with George Orwell. He says, ‘The important thing about a writer is his books, the important thing about a writer’s life is the way in which it has affected his work.’ I tend to agree. Symons also added a few comments to the text concerning many of his publications. He gives an interesting account of the genesis of The Broken Penny, and says of The Narrowing Circle: ‘No critic has remarked on the fact that the central idea of this story owes something to Kenneth Fearing’s The Big Clock.’ He goes on to describe things he likes about The Narrowing Circle, and things he doesn’t: ‘like the inability to produce a satisfactory climactic scene, which I know to be a failing transcended only in a few stories.’ He also explains why he discarded a series detective, and in characteristically combative style says: ‘I find the fanzine aspect of the series detective repellent…A crutch is useful, no doubt, but it is better to stand on two legs’.

I don’t agree with him about series detectives, and I think he’s too hard on himself in some cases – my verdict on The Plot Against Roger Rider is much more sympathetic than his own, and I really don’t know why he felt it a flop. But never mind. It’s fascinating stuff, and but for John J. Walsdorf’s admirable diligence, it would never have become available. A while ago, incidentally, I saw that Walsdorf’s Symons collection was for sale online. The price was something like $30,000.