80,000 Suspects (1963)

Director:

Val Guest

Writers:

Val Guest (writer)
Trevor Dudley Smith (novel)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Plague | Digit In Title | Disease | Epidemic | Independent Film

Cast

Claire Bloom	...	Julie Monks
Richard Johnson	...	Dr. Steven Monks
Yolande Donlan	...	Ruth Preston
Cyril Cusack	...	Father Maguire
Michael Goodliffe	...	Clifford Preston
Mervyn Johns	...	Buckridge
Kay Walsh	...	Matron
Norman Bird	...	Harold Davis
Basil Dignam	...	Medical Officer Boswell
Arthur Christiansen	...	Editor - Bath Evening Chronicle (Mr. Graney)
Ray Barrett	...	Health Inspector Bennett
Andrew Crawford	...	Dr. Ruddling
Jill Curzon	...	Nurse Jill
Vanda Godsell	...	Mrs. Agnes Davis
Ursula Howells	...	Joanna Duten

Runtime:

USA:113 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | UK:A

Filming Locations:

Bath, Somerset, England, UK

Company:

Rank Organisation, The

Goofs:

Factual errors: Throughout the movie smallpox vaccinations are administered to people who've not received one within a year. When administered properly, the smallpox vaccine needs to be given just once. It lasts a lifetime.

Not great

Officials in the City of Bath have to find "80,000 Suspects" in this 1963 film starring Richard Johnson, Claire Bloom, Yolande Donlan, and Cyril Cusack. Johnson is Steven Monks, an overworked doctor, and Bloom is his wife, Julie, an ex-nurse, who delay their vacation to fight a pending epidemic of smallpox. There is tension between the two; Monks had an affair with another doctor's wife, Ruth (Donlan), who becomes the subject of a search when it's learned that she was with someone infected with smallpox.

A very uninvolving movie that concentrates more on the relationship of the husband and wife than it does the tracking down of people who may have been infected with smallpox. That doesn't necessarily make it less interesting, but in this case, it's hard to warm up to the main characters. The lesser characters are actually far more likable and interesting - Michael Goodlife as Ruth's devastated husband and Basil Dignam as the worried chief medical officer.

There's not much in the way of raw emotion from either Johnson nor Bloom, both excellent actors but neither one particularly warm. The script calls for them to be very stoic.

Could have been compelling - isn't.