Gerald Thomas directed five ho-hum films in the nineteen fifties before Carry On, Sergeant struck a chord with the brain-dead pre-Multiplexers of the day and this was one of them. Raymond Chandler famously said that the easiest murders to solve are the ones that someone tried too hard with and such is the case here. What we have is a sort of David Mamet scenario lacking Mamet's skill. In the early stages there is a throwaway moment that will prove crucial later. Having met at London airport as a favour to a friend a German actress previously unknown to him, John Mills attempts to light a cigarette in the car en route to London only to find his lighter doesn't work, whereupon the actress offers him a book of matches and tells him to keep them. These are two STRANGERS, remember so in order for this to work the actress must know in advance that 1) Mills smokes at all, 2) he will elect to smoke during the car journey, 3) that he owns a lighter and not matches of his own and 4) that his lighter will fail to work. If stuff like this doesn't bother you none of the rest will, like, for example, a scene towards the end with Mills in his flat talking to his fiancé. He takes a phone call which necessitates him keeping a rendez-vous but rejects the fiancé's offer to go with him. Instead he tosses her a bunch of keys saying 'these are the keys to my flat, let yourself in and wait for me there'. Quite a trick when they are actually IN his flat at the time. On the credit side there are some nice nostalgic views of a long-vanished London that match the long-vanished logic.
Review of The Circle
