Colonel March Investigates (1952)

User Rating:

4.6/10   

Director:

Cy Endfield

Writers:

John Dickson Carr (stories)
Leo Davis (writer)

Release Date:

22 August 1955 (Denmark)

Genre:

Mystery

Plot Keywords:

Colonel | Character Name In Title

Cast

Boris Karloff	...	Col. March (archive footage)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Sheila Burrell	...	Joan Forsythe (archive footage)
Anthony Forwood	...	Jim Hartley (archive footage)
Sonya Hana	...	Paula (archive footage)
John Hewer	...	John Parrish (archive footage)
Ronald Leigh-Hunt	...	Ireton Bowlder (archive footage)
Roger Maxwell	...	Maj. Rodman (archive footage)
Patricia Owens	...	Betty Hartley (archive footage)
Bernard Rebel	...	The Count (archive footage)
Ewan Roberts	...	Insp. Ames (archive footage)
Joan Sims	...	Marjorie Dawson (archive footage)
Richard Wattis	...	Cabot (archive footage)
Dana Wynter	...	Francine Rapport (archive footage) (as Dagmar Wynter)

Also Known As:

Colonel March of Scotland Yard

Runtime:

UK:70 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:S

Company:

Criterion Films

Movie Connections:

Followed by "Colonel March of Scotland Yard" (1956)

Very mild tele-series compendium

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A compendium of three adventures for Boris Karloff as the eye-patched Scotland Yard man in charge of D3 - Department for Queer Complaints (really). Stitched together (without ceremony) as a plug for the British television series, it clearly worked, since twenty-odd subsequent episodes appeared over the next four years, keeping Karloff in genial, efficient work.

Here, he investigates a bank robbery, the murder of a Japanese dancer and a young couple whose house is apparently haunted by a pair of murderous gloves. I bow to no man in my admiration for the director, a victim of the McCarthy blacklist, but he brings no distinction to this assignment, filming flatly and cheaply (Richard Wattis' nightclub appears to be no more than one table, a tiny stage, an even smaller bar, and a dressing room) and apparently most interested in getting to the end of each story.

Which leaves only the plots, and these are mild indeed. Each turns on a supposedly mysterious twist which only Colonel March's brilliantly insightful mind can discover - the culprits are never in much doubt, the question is how they thought they could get away with it - but the audience is never allowed into the deductive process. We're left with Karloff twinkling away (always a pleasure) and a lot of ropey old technique. The Endfield who made, for instance, "The underworld story", is nowhere in evidence.