This fifties British mystery film holds together and is very good. It was based on a mystery tale by Francis Durbridge which had been filmed as a six-part BBC television series only the year before, entitled THE TECKMAN BIOGRAPHY (1953-4), with a now forgotten cast, which has never been reviewed, and is presumably lost. The story, being here greatly compressed, thus has a great deal of meat to it and is never short on substance. The film was the first feature film directed by Wendy Toye (1917-2010), a multi-talented woman who was also an actress, choreographer, dance instructor, ballet dancer, writer, producer, and stage director. She did an excellent job of directing this film, which is a true British film noir. John Justin and Margaret Leighton are the leads and they do very well. Leighton is very good at ambiguity and impenetrable mystery. Roland Culver plays a dogged police inspector and Michael Medwin plays the elusive Martin Teckman, who turns out not to have died as a test pilot in the dramatic crash of an experimental plane after all, but turns up in the middle of the film very much alive but very much on the run. It is a good and intriguing espionage yarn.
Review of The Teckman Mystery
