Three Steps in the Dark.

How nice a wee family get together.

The usual suspects were involved in the making this Corsair Productions B-movie from 1953. Helmed by Daniel Birt (The Night Won’t Talk 1952, Meet Mr Malcolm 1954) adapted by Brook William from story by Roger East with quality black and white photography from the reliable Hone Glendining.

 

Surely the elderly housekeeper is not going to murder Uncle?

A drawing room whodunit where a rich, but intensely disliked uncle (Nicholas Hannen) calls a family reunion to tell his baying relations that he’s about to change his will. But low and behold he’s shot dead before he can complete the task. Of course there’s plenty off suspects even if we ignore the Butler and the elderly housekeeper played by Katie Johnson, who you will recognise from Ealing’s 1955 black comedy The Ladykillers. There’s the cousin Sophie Burgoyne (Oslo born Greta Gynt) the amateur sleuth and crime writer who knows a lot about murder, stables owner Philip Burgoyne (Hugh Sinclair) who has money problems and his wife the hateful Dorothy (this blogger’s favourite B actress Sarah Lawson). Then there’s the relation who expects to inherit the old mans estate, Henry Burgoyne (John Van Eyssen) whose last hope of riches rests with Uncle’s money, not forgetting his fiancé Esme (Helen Cordet the French television actress in her debut feature film role) who has one too many secrets.  And if any B-movie has Elwyn Brook-Jones in the cast then you automatically have a suspect, he plays the murder victims lawyer, Wilbraham.

 

'Perhaps Uncle shoot himself?'

Not according to the police he didn't.

Some well above average acting from this ensemble B-movie cast and certainly one of Birt’s better examples from this genre. Up until recently we would not have had the chance to see it.  There is no indication that the film was ever shown publicly again in cinemas after its initial release or on television. The British Film Institute included the film on its "75 Most Wanted" list of missing British feature films, due in large part to interest from film historians in Birt's relatively brief directorial career, which as I have said previously was cut short by his death at the age of 47 in 1955. The National Film and Sound Archive in Australia subsequently informed the BFI it has the film[1]. So thanks to Odeon Entertainment for painstakingly restoring this ‘missing believed lost’ movie to life for us to all to enjoy.

Esme is not about to divulge her secrets!

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[1] The BFI November 2013.

Meet Mr Malcolm.

As I pointed out in my ramble about The Night Won’t Talk (1952) British film director Daniel Birt reverted to B-movies before his early death in 1955 at the age of 48 following a career in documentaries and feature films. Meet Mr Malcolm (1954) was certainly not up there with his best work.

Carrington-Phelps uses his charm on the maid. 

This pedestrian and cliché ridden story involves estranged husband and wife Colin and Louie Knowles played by Richard Gale and the familiar face of Sarah Lawson. Louie has asked her crime writer husband to investigate the disappearance of her boss Mr Durant, who she has worked for as a personnel assistant for just over a month. Mrs Durant (Adrianne Allen) does not want the police involved but she is forced to change her mind when her husband’s body is found at the bottom of a cliff, is it murder or just an unfortunate accident?  The local police, which consists of an Inspector and a police Sargent (played by the reliable Nigel Green who you will remember as Mayor Dolby in The Ipcress File 1965), have asked the crime writer to stay on until the inquest is over which means that he has now been virtually reunited with Louie. You may well asking if we have any suspects, well its obvious that Durant was murdered as Corsair Pictures are not going to make a film about a man who fell off a cliff! There’s Durant’s stage stuck daughter Andrea who married a man who her father never approved of, and there’s an old tramp called Whistler Grant (Meredith Edwards) that seems to live at the bottom of the garden. I think your realise that there’s more to our whistling tramp than meets the eye. Appearing late on in the story is Andrea’s theatrical agent Carrington-Phelps, an over the top performance from John Blyth who was seen in many TV programmes right up to the end of the 1980’s.

 

There's more to Whistler Grant than meets the eye!

This rambling murder mystery is both silly and corny; the main problem is the script with its lightweight characters.  Based on a novel by Roger East, who was a writer for 1960’s TV series Maigret, with a screenplay adapted by our old friend, Corsair’s in house screenwriter, Brook Williams. Overseeing the camerawork and the lighting was Hone Glendining, with the musical batten wielded by Frank Chacksfield and made at the Viking Studios in London. Not the best example of the B-movie genre.

The Night Won't Talk.

The underrated Hy Hazell on the left.

This whodunit murder mystery is reputed to be one of Corsair Pictures finest B-movies. When a beautiful young artists model Stella Smith is found strangled in her bed, Scotland Yard find themselves with three suspects. Firstly there's her ex-husband Martin Soames played by the sinister Elwyn Brook-Jones, secondly we have a sexually disturbed artist (Ballard Berkeley) and finally her violent new boyfriend Clayton Hawkes (character actor John Bailey) who because of service in WW2 is prone to blackouts. The only way that Scotland Yard is going to catch the killer is to set a trap with the help of Theodore Castle played by Hy Hazell an actress that was almost never asked to extend her obvious acting talent beyond some quite mediocre parts (see also Yellow Balloon 1953).

John Bailey plays the murder suspect Clayton Hawkes.

Based on an original story by Roger Burford and adapted for the screen by Corsair Pictures in house screenwriter Brock Williams The Night Won't Talk (1952) was directed by Daniel Birt who was best known for his very first feature film The Three Weird Sisters made in 1948. He was originally a respected editor in pre WW2 British films before he became a documentary maker for Sydney Box's Verity Films prior to making feature films. Reverting to B-movies before his early death in 1955 at the age of 48. The DOP was Brendon Stafford who had a busy if not an especially distinguished career spending most of his post war livelihood shooting B-movie’s and TV series including Danger Man and The Prisoner. Gilbert Vinter composed music for the film.

Filmed at the Viking Studio 1-5 St Mary Abbots Place Kensington London and on location in and around Kensington and Chelsea its certainly a film of its time with lines like 'the girl asked for it' when the police are discussing the murder of Stella Smith and the modelling work she was involved in, not politely correct by today's standards that's for sure! But harmless pulp fiction all the same with a typical woman scorned narrative.