A successful murder mystery writer called Robert Southley (Hugh Sinclair) bases his novels on his life experience: he used to be an armed robber in Pittsburgh Pensylvania and is actually on the run. His past threatens to catch up with him when his former accomplice, an American called Fenton (Michael Brennan) arrives in London, recognises him and sees the opportunity to try a little blackmail. He demands £500.00 for the return of a letter that Southley once wrote to him giving details of a jewel robbery they pulled off together. Southley pays up and Fenton gives him the letter, but it is a copy and he later comes back for more. Southley, not wanting to be caught and lose his luxurious lifestyle as a top writer, decides to kill Fenton and devises what he believes to be a foolproof way of doing it. But, after he has committed the crime, he finds that his friend Inspector MacDougall (John Laurie) of the Yard has been put on the case. The two men have had a long standing wager to prove that their own methods of solving crime are the most effective so MacDougall invites Southley along to help solve his own murder! Meanwhile, Southley begins work on his new novel and he is sort of basing it upon his own murder. He becomes perturbed when his interfering secretary, Linda (Dinah Sheridan), starts putting forward her own solution as to how his fictional character committed his murder. And, worse still, she is describing in exact detail the way that Southley murdered Fenton. Southley realises that he may have to kill Linda too...
A very proficient suspenser from producers Monty Berman and Robert S. Baker who through their own production company, Tempean, made some of the very best British 'B' features of the fifties. It has an ingenious plot that Alfred Hitchcock would have probably loved and it is tempting for us to think about what he might have done with it.
Writer and director John Gilling may have been no Hitchcock, although he was apparently experimenting with the technique of long choreographed takes in a bid to save studio time and the old master himself had been trying out something very similar at this time. Nevertheless, Gilling constructs the build up extremely well and his screenplay allows for some very suspenseful situations as Sinclair's meddling secretary begins to unmask him as the murderer - accidentally, at first, since it is only a coincidence that her ideas for his plot correspond with that of the real crime. Things get edgier and edgier as she gets closer to the truth culminating when she reads her employer's draft chapter of the proposed book in which the murder victim's criminal record reads exactly as that of Fenton's. How could Southley have possibly known when it had just been wired to Inspector MacDougall by the FBI? We can see that Southley is becoming more and more anxious realising that he will eventually have to dispose of Linda and the tension comes from when and how he will go about it. It does not matter that some of the film's plot twists and turns border on the improbable and, at times, even the absurd since the main thrust of the plot centres on the arrogance and pomposity of Southley's character since he is so convinced he has committed the perfect crime when even we can see it is full of holes and it is how he meets his eventual downfall that is really important here.
The cast is is very good and the chemistry between Sinclair and Laurie as they try to outfox each other is reasonably entertaining. Barry Morse is also noteworthy as Dinah Sheridan's on screen boyfriend, Sgt. Harrison, who dislikes Southley intensely; in part because he is jealous of him since he believes her to be in love with him. Nor was he a fan of his novels describing them as "corny" among other things and, later, he spots a connection between Southley's written works and the murder method that enables MacDougall to catch his man and prove that his investigatory methods bases on "hard facts" are much more effective than Southley's "psychological deduction." But, not in the way he had first imagined he would.
A very proficient suspenser from producers Monty Berman and Robert S. Baker who through their own production company, Tempean, made some of the very best British 'B' features of the fifties. It has an ingenious plot that Alfred Hitchcock would have probably loved and it is tempting for us to think about what he might have done with it.
Writer and director John Gilling may have been no Hitchcock, although he was apparently experimenting with the technique of long choreographed takes in a bid to save studio time and the old master himself had been trying out something very similar at this time. Nevertheless, Gilling constructs the build up extremely well and his screenplay allows for some very suspenseful situations as Sinclair's meddling secretary begins to unmask him as the murderer - accidentally, at first, since it is only a coincidence that her ideas for his plot correspond with that of the real crime. Things get edgier and edgier as she gets closer to the truth culminating when she reads her employer's draft chapter of the proposed book in which the murder victim's criminal record reads exactly as that of Fenton's. How could Southley have possibly known when it had just been wired to Inspector MacDougall by the FBI? We can see that Southley is becoming more and more anxious realising that he will eventually have to dispose of Linda and the tension comes from when and how he will go about it. It does not matter that some of the film's plot twists and turns border on the improbable and, at times, even the absurd since the main thrust of the plot centres on the arrogance and pomposity of Southley's character since he is so convinced he has committed the perfect crime when even we can see it is full of holes and it is how he meets his eventual downfall that is really important here.
The cast is is very good and the chemistry between Sinclair and Laurie as they try to outfox each other is reasonably entertaining. Barry Morse is also noteworthy as Dinah Sheridan's on screen boyfriend, Sgt. Harrison, who dislikes Southley intensely; in part because he is jealous of him since he believes her to be in love with him. Nor was he a fan of his novels describing them as "corny" among other things and, later, he spots a connection between Southley's written works and the murder method that enables MacDougall to catch his man and prove that his investigatory methods bases on "hard facts" are much more effective than Southley's "psychological deduction." But, not in the way he had first imagined he would.