User Reviews

Derek Farr and his wife Patricia Plunkett are having another fight after Farr comes back home from another one of his flings. Plunkett decides enough is enough and leaves him. Farr ends up getting drunk in a nightclub with their landlord Dennis Price, who leaves for home again soon after. But not after introducing Farr to hostess Joan Dowling, and he ends up driving her home. One thing leads to another and they end up in Farr's apartment. Plunkett in the meantime has cooled down and calls home, to say she's coming back. Dowling overhears it and there is another fight, with Farr pushing Dowling away who hits her head on a table. Farr panics and shoves her body inside an ottoman. Price noticed the noise from upstairs and decides to have a look, and senses something is not quite right. A cat and mouse game ensues, but not all is what it seems, least of all for Farr.

This movie's the 2nd movie adaptation of a play written by J. Lee Thompson ('The Guns Of Navarone', 'Cape Fear'), who also directed this movie, his first. It explains why the movie plays out primarily in the Farr/Plunkett apartment. Comparisons can easily be made between this movie and Hitchcock's 'Rope', with the body hidden in plain sight in a piece of furniture, and an outsider smelling something fishy. Fun trivia, Dennis Price played in the first (TV) version of 'Rope', from 1939. In any case, Thompson does well here, the stage-y nature of the story doesn't slow down this movie, nor does the movie feel like a 'Rope' copy. It is well-made, tense, and also looks rather nice, with some good cinematography by William McLeod ('Alibi', 'Guilt Is My Shadow'). Despite being a Britnoir, there is an American voice-over who gives a weird, almost anecdotal narration at various points in the movie, proclaiming at the end of the movie he has to fly home again. It is a quirky touch, that did feel slightly out of place, but wasn't annoying.

The 4 main characters, who are also the only credited ones, give good performances. Price ('Dear Murderer') turns up his posh British accent a notch above usual, while Farr ('Double Confession') is great as the panic-stricken man trying to think things through. Plunkett ('It Always Rains On Sunday') and Dowling ('For Them That Trespass') are a bit underused. I would've liked to have seen more of Dowling who does a great 'common' hostess who uses her looks and charm to try and move up in life.

The movie has various twists and turns along the way, and a very ironic finale and ending (which I'm not sure would've passed the censors had it been made in the US). While it's nothing too noir-ish, it does provide some nice entertainment with good performances and excellent dialogue. Recommended. 7/10

Slow-moving and stagey, but interesting "B" movie with arresting camera-work by Bill McLeod, plus the baroque finery of Jon Ashton's inspired art direction. Lee-Thompson's screenplay has overtones of "Rope", and one could not wish for a more ironic climax. However, 97 minutes is a little too long to spend with only four characters – especially as two of them are absent for much of the time, allowing the film to develop as a rather self-indulgent duologue. The movie is also saddled with an ill-advised and utterly phoney Pete Smith narration. Nevertheless, it has many good moments – plus, as noted above, Ashton's inspired sets. It's mighty unusual to find Ashton working on a "B"-budget movie (even though its running time puts it right out of the "B" line-up), but this was his debut assignment as an art director.

I wonder whether scriptwriters take it upon themselves to insert a narrator into a script or if a producer does this to bolster a weak script.It can work e.g. Murder My Sweet but invariably it does not.I don't think that anything could save this film from mediocrity.Mind you the script seems to have taken ideas from Rope and the director the tilted camera angles from that Third Man.One of the big problems of this film is that characters are continually jumping to the wrong conclusions.Dennis Price does his usual character of a down at heels blackmailed.However his appearance in this film is evidence of his declining career.Apart from the deficiencies of the plot,this film could have made a good radio play.The director would go on to bigger and better films.

This first film J. Lee Thompson directed was based on his stage play of the same name. If not prison dramas, most of Thompson's noir themed films of the fifties like The Yellow Balloon were built on the same premise of a gullible victim convinced by someone else that he had committed murder when the crime never really happened. There is a big surprise twist at the end, it's not very believable because the blackmailer drinks from a poisoned glass and can walk to his own room so that our protagonist will not have to be charged with any crime for his death. To believe this, evidence of where the poison was would also have to be moved to the blackmailer's flat. Thompson hams this talk opera up during the climax with extreme face closeups and hysterical laughing. A binge drinker himself, it's not exactly a surprise that he conceived this tall tale. An obnoxious narrator often explains points in the plot that don't need to be heard. A less syrupy ending would have helped, too.

Every married couple fights, and they usually make up before the end of the night, but it's what happens in between that judges how or if they will make up. The ridiculous fight between Derek Farr and Patricia Plunkett leads her to storming out, and his ending up in a dive bar where he meets the loose Joan Dowling who has mood swings that go up and down faster than an elevator. He storms out of her flat and she follows him, and she goes ballistic when he takes a phone call from his wife and decides to go pick her up. Farr is too drunk to deal with her rationally, and rational isn't in her nature, so she ends up dead and the whole situation ends up being overheard by bachelor landlord Dennis Price good times to the nasty business of blackmail to keep Farr under his thumb and stay quiet.

A well-written but predictable drama about why pick-ups frequently end badly, although this takes it to a much more serious level. The art direction is quite stunning, with some of the gauche pieces quite a sight to behold. This four character film, obviously based on a stage play, is very well acted with Dowling quite fiery in her brief time on screen. The argument between Farr and Plunkett is really about nothing, and it's obvious that once they both get over their pride, they'll make up. But it's during that period of fiery confusion and anxiety that the mind has the man making a huge mistake, and it's obvious that regret will follow. Price is quite sly with a smirk when he visits Farr after the accident, and that adds to the fun. My only issue was the obnoxious narration which is supposed to be comic but ends up only being an intrusion that nearly destroys the mood.

The UK Forestry Commission kept the British Film industry supplied with a constant stream of wooden actors throughout the forties and fifties - Richard Todd, John Gregson, Richard Pasco, Kieron Moore, Anthony Steele, not forgetting, of course, Derek Farr who takes one of the four roles in this quasi-thriller based on a play by J. Lee Thompson and marking his directing debut. Although someone has seen fit to employ a narrator to top and tail the proceedings they have not seen fit to afford him a credit. Although Thompson 'opens it out' a tad its stage origins are evident and it relies a tad too much on legerdemain, nevertheless it does entertain and offers a glimpse of two actresses who never quite fulfilled their early promise; Patrica Plunkett more or less petered out whilst Joan Dowling committed suicide in the wake of her husband's unfaithfulness. The husband was Harry Fowler and both had found early success as child actors in Hue and Cry and though Fowler survived his wife and remarried he never fulfilled his own early promise despite appearing in several more films. Murder Without Crime remains a curio which is well worth watching.

Wow, where to start - a fabulous movie but it didn't start out fabulously with a heavily accented American voice over, trying to give it a pulp noir mood but only succeeded in giving it comic overtones. Once the plot proper got going, the usually jovial Derek Farr found that by accompanying the supercilious Dennis Price (Britain's answer to George Saunders) to the Teneriffe Bar, he was plunged into his dark world. The first directorial effort of J. Lee Thompson, taken from his 1943 play "Double Error" this starts off very "Phantom Lady". Stephen (Farr) has a fight with his wife Jan (the very lovely Patricia Plunkett) who takes off into the night planning to stay with a friend but actually ending up at a hotel. Stephen goes off to a bar with the jaded Matthew who introduces him to a vivid young hostess Grena. Stephen then ends up with Grena at his apartment and by this time he realises she is pretty emotionally unstable particularly when she starts brandishing a knife and after she has shown him the variety of uppers and downers she takes to help her cope with life. Suddenly there is a struggle and Stephen, seeing an inert body, is convinced he has killed her and hides her in an ottoman!!

The main body of the film is a cat and mouse game of emotional wit played out in the midst of a hideously over decorated Victorian set of rooms and between Stephen who is already distraught and the cool and calculating Matthew who heard a violent scuffle above and wants to become involved. Matthew is the landlord and as the film progresses the viewer realises that his haughty demeanour masks a man whose life is spiralling out of control - his debts and high living expenses are sending him to the wall and he has had to find tenants for a suite of rooms in order to keep his head above water (as Stephen says at one stage "God I hate the furnishings in this place"). Jan returns long enough to give him support and also to go on an errand that puts her in the picture for a surprise ending.

Dennis Price, as usual giving a venom filled performance, his Matthew, habitually dressed in a smoking jacket is always quietly in control. Derek Farr is terrific, usually playing ordinary workers ie cabbies, bus conductors etc who are caught up in sometimes dark circumstances. Here he is an emotional wreck from the start, fed up with his wife's moods but so easy a prey for an unscrupulous person to manipulate. Much praise should be given to the tragic Joan Dowling as the intensely charged Grena, the hostess who is not going to be the type of person you tell your troubles to in a bar and expect unemotional sympathy!! Dowling who looked like a young Googie Withers was considered a natural actress and before she was signed to a contract at 17 she had not had any voice or coaching lessons prior. Unfortunately she died young at 27.

Very Recommended

MURDER WITHOUT CRIME is an interesting albeit low budget character drama from future Hollywood director J. Lee Thompson. It's obviously made on a tight budget with just four main characters, although when one of them is played by the delightfully slimy Dennis Price you know you're in for an interesting watch. It's a story of accidental murder and blackmail, fleshed out by the usual twists and tension. Derek Farr doesn't make for the most sympathetic of protagonists but an intense Price carries the attention. The crazed set decoration plays a big part too.

MURDER WITHOUT CRIME - 1950

A top-flight noir from the U.K. Dennis Price is a down on his luck aristocrat forced to rent out rooms to maintain his former lifestyle. Derek Farr and Patricia Plunkett play the couple who have moved in upstairs. One night after a rather loud argument, the wife grabs a suitcase and storms out. Farr decides to hell with the wife and heads out to get blasted.

Watching them both leave is Price who could not help but hear the dispute. Farr hits the pub and gets himself good and plastered. While at the pub he cuddles up to Joan Dowling. Dowling is a party girl who is always on the prowl for a good time. The pair leave together and head for Dowling's room. There they find the lack of alcohol a definite hindrance to the proceedings.

Farr suggests a move to his place where there is a ready supply. A couple of belts later as the two are getting to the clinches, the phone rings. It is Plunkett. She wants to come home and make up. Farr agrees. Now he must get Dowling to leave, but she has other ideas. She does not intend to have her night spoiled and refuses to go.

Farr offers her some cash which Dowling throws back in his face along with a slap. Farr responds in kind and down goes Dowling cracking her head on a table on the way. "The wife is coming home and I have a body in the front room!" Farr dumps Dowling into a clothes closet and heads off to intercept the wife.

Downstairs the whole time of course has been Price listening to the fight upstairs. Price uses his passkey to enter and have a look around. A quick cut to the street and we see Plunkett arrive having missed Farr on the street. She enters the flat and quickly notices the glass with the lipstick.

She begins her own look around just as Farr returns and confesses all. Plunkett decides to stick with her man and they discuss how to get rid of the body. Farr then remembers he had left his gloves at Dowling's place. Plunkett goes off to retrieve the gloves while Farr is to load the body into the car. Farr opens the closet and finds it empty. What is he to do. Farr decides the only way out is suicide.

He mixes himself a drink and adds a lethal dose of poison. As he is mixing the deadly cocktail,l there is a knock at the door followed by Price entering. Price suggests that a little chat is in order. A slight increase in rent of say 50 fold a month will be needed to maintain his silence. Price hints he knows everything and a call to the police will put the couple in prison. Farr agrees to the terms.

The phone rings, Farr answers. It is Plunkett calling from Dowling's flat. Dowling is not dead! She is there with a nasty bump on the head! She had been knocked unconscious and had revived while Price had been looking through the flat. Price is simply pulling a fast one!

As Farr listens to his wife, he watches Price help himself to the sherry full of poison. Farr says nothing. He then tells Price to get stuffed. Farr watches Price leave knowing full well Price will be dead within 5 minutes. He could care less. (b/w)