7/10
Dinah and Derek in delirious drama
8 July 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Upper crust Dinah Sheridan is naive enough to believe that raffish Derek Farr loves her for herself and not for Daddy's money, but behind her back the bounder is playing the field. When he gets shipped off to the colonies to fight he promises to write but Daddy has the dashed bad luck to die on a fox-hunt and it turns out the old boy was heavily in debt. With no further word from Derek and the mansion sold off to pay the debts what's a poor gel to do but tramp the streets of London looking for a job? After falling in front of some traffic she is deposited in a Lyons corner house by a good old London Bobby where she meets formidable Matron Margaretta Scott who dispenses tea and sympathy and a job at the local hospital. All goes swimmingly for Dinah until she travels to help our boys abroad and bumps into that bounder again, after that it's all downhill until she meets John Robinson (doing his best Noel Coward impersonation) and realises she is in love with him during a game of 'Perfect Pussy' (I'm not making this up). He is working on a miracle drug and gets his chance to try it out on wealthy invalid Beatrix Thomson who although bed bound has been working overtime on the hair and makeup to keep up appearances. Desperately ill Beatrix needs a live in nurse so Dinah moves in to give her the requisite shots much to the chagrin of Mrs Danvers look-alike Barbara Couper. Barbara gives Dinah the evil eye but casts far too friendly an eye over her cousin Beatrix however soon all eyes are on Derek who turns out to be the newly wedded husband of old moneybags Beatrix. Barbara cottons on to the fact that there is more to Dinah and Derek than meets her evil eye and concocts a cunning plan to reveal the truth to bewildered Beatrix. Beatrix has an uncanny ability of being able to impersonate the voice of others at will (both men & women) in fact they are so good you could be forgiven for thinking that the voices are dubbed in. Beatrix puts her talents to good use by phoning Derek and pretending to be Dinah and dastardly Derek is rumbled. Beatrix collapses into a heap with shock and is swiftly finished off with a lethal injection but administered by who? At the coroners court the culprit is revealed and makes a dash for it but no-one gets past policeman Arthur Mullard and the murderer makes a hysterical confession in the dramatic finale.

Well you won't see the likes of this melodrama again stuffed as it is with unlikely coincidences and improbable impersonations. It is also stuffed full of long forgotten stage actors who turn the whole farrago into compulsive entertainment. You simply have to see it!
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