The Third Alibi (1961)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Montgomery Tully

Writers:

Jane Baker (original play "Moment of Blindness")
Pip Baker (original play)

Release Date:

September 1961 (UK)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A composer stuck in a middle-class marriage finds that his affair with his wife's half-sister has resulted in her pregnancy...

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Cast

Laurence Payne	...	Norman Martell
Patricia Dainton	...	Helen Martell
Jane Griffiths	...	Peggy Hill
Edward Underdown	...	Dr. Murdoch
John Arnatt	...	Supt. Ross
Humphrey Lestocq	...	Producer
Lucy Griffiths	...	Miss Potter
Cleo Laine	...	Singer
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Arthur Hewlett	...	Marshall
Annette Kerr	...	Cinema cashier
Olive Milbourn	...	Mrs. Booth

Runtime:

68 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:A

Company:

Eternal Films

Trivia:

First screened in 1961 by British cinemas as a second feature. It was later screened on American television as an episode of "Kraft Mystery Theater" (1961).

Soundtrack:

NOW AND THEN

Neat little British thriller with a great twist ending

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Neat little British thriller directed by Montgomery Tulley, who was perhaps best known for the Merton Park Edgar Wallace and Scotland Yard crime dramas. A good story, well directed with an impressive cast, especially Laurence Payne as philandering songwriter Norman and the ever-reliable John Arnatt as the police inspector. There's a neat twist at the end (NB: don't read on if you haven't seen the film) where the old man Norman thinks of as a nosey neighbour (Arthur Hewlett) who will confirm his alibi, as an eyewitness, turns out to be blind. This is poetic justice because he was the old man who Norman and Peggy knock down in the hit-and-run accident we see at the start of the film and is only blind because of the accident. A few criticisms: the plot doesn't quite make sense in that there's no explanation as how Norman's wife Helen (or Hel-in as the doctor insists on calling her) knows that her sister made a fuss at the Cinema confectionery kiosk (as part of her fake alibi) because Norman and Peggy hadn't discussed that part when Helen overheard the plot to kill her. Also, at the end, there's no reason given why Norman (Laurence Payne) doesn't make any attempt to use the doctor's arrival at the house to confirm his real alibi. I guess this was so he relies completely on the old man to support his alibi but it's almost as though he wants to be arrested for murder. Also check out Peggy's living room, although it has windows from the outside the set designers forget to put any windows on the interior set! Watch out for Dudley Moore in an uncredited role as pianist in the stage scenes accompanying Cleo Laine (in real life Dudley Moore was pianist with Johnny Dankworth's band at the time, just prior to his success with Beyond The Fringe).