The next film watched for the "House of Hammer" podcast is 1953's "Mantrap", alternately titled both "Woman In Hiding" and "Man In Hiding" depending on where and when you come across it.
Thelma (Lois Maxwell) is disturbed to learn that her husband, Speight (Kieron Moore) has escaped from Prison, where he was sentenced for murder. In the subsequent years, Thelma had established a new life for herself and has remarried to Victor Tasman (Bill Travers). There are serious questions though about whether Speight committed the murder and one of his friends asks Hugo Bishop (Paul Henreid) to find him before the police do.
A reasonably solid if somewhat unspectacular whodunnit. It's apparent pretty early that that despite her fear, Speight is not actually hunting his ex-wife and so that only really leaves one other option. Performances are OK. Paul Henreid is not perhaps a typical leading man, but his spark with his secretary/fiancé, played by Kay Kendall, is quite good. Hammer regular Anthony Forwood reappears as yet another upper-class cad, but again, he's got that role down.
Visually and aurally, the film is OK, if not perhaps the height of what we've seen from Hammer (This may be linked though to me seeing a Youtube version that appears to have been recorded from the television. The story is fine, but, as is often the case with Hammer films, the ending is not such more stunted as abrupt. It's also a little bit to small for what it needs to be. In hinges on one character seeing another across a dancefloor, but the room doesn't seem big enough for them not to have noticed each other previously.
It was alright, perhaps a little more invention wouldn't have gone amiss, and I doubt I'm ever going to watch it again.
Thelma (Lois Maxwell) is disturbed to learn that her husband, Speight (Kieron Moore) has escaped from Prison, where he was sentenced for murder. In the subsequent years, Thelma had established a new life for herself and has remarried to Victor Tasman (Bill Travers). There are serious questions though about whether Speight committed the murder and one of his friends asks Hugo Bishop (Paul Henreid) to find him before the police do.
A reasonably solid if somewhat unspectacular whodunnit. It's apparent pretty early that that despite her fear, Speight is not actually hunting his ex-wife and so that only really leaves one other option. Performances are OK. Paul Henreid is not perhaps a typical leading man, but his spark with his secretary/fiancé, played by Kay Kendall, is quite good. Hammer regular Anthony Forwood reappears as yet another upper-class cad, but again, he's got that role down.
Visually and aurally, the film is OK, if not perhaps the height of what we've seen from Hammer (This may be linked though to me seeing a Youtube version that appears to have been recorded from the television. The story is fine, but, as is often the case with Hammer films, the ending is not such more stunted as abrupt. It's also a little bit to small for what it needs to be. In hinges on one character seeing another across a dancefloor, but the room doesn't seem big enough for them not to have noticed each other previously.
It was alright, perhaps a little more invention wouldn't have gone amiss, and I doubt I'm ever going to watch it again.