User Reviews

Although the police have termed her mother's death by gas a suicide, a teenage girl (Mandy Miller) believes her step-father (Peter VanEyck) murdered her.

Hammer may be best known for their horror films, but they made some pretty fine thrillers and murder mysteries, too, as this film attests. Helmed by Guy Green (who made his name under David Lean) and written by Hammer's Jimmy Sangster, this is just pure genius beginning to end.

From the opening scene, we know how the killer does his work... but then we watch and see if his teenage stepdaughter can find out. Blaming someone for murder is one thing, but finding solid proof is something else entirely.

Minor but entertaining Hammer thriller, not quite reaching the heights of other entries in their "psychological thrillers" ouevre, but still effective.

The film starts right off with it's main murderer on screen committing his evil deed, clearly establishing his (and the film's) gimmick of the snorkel used as an accessory to murder. So from the very beginning we know this is not going to be a whodunnit. What we have here instead here is a "who will find out" plot.

Once the opening credits have finished, the main plot of the film starts with the daughter of the murder victim feeling almost positive that she knows who is responsible for the deed but at the same time, unable to prove it, as nobody has been able to work out how the act was committed, and therefore the killer has got away with it. The more agitated the daughter becomes, the more the killer starts to see her as a threat to his freedom, and so a cat and mouse game starts to build as both try to outwit each other.

This sounds complicated, and it is, but the roles in the film are quite well defined. The killer is a creepy but charismatic older man, able to convince everyone that he is actually mourning his dead wife, and the "suspector" is a teenage girl who everyone thinks is just over imaginative. I could almost imagine William Castle making this film! The acting is very good, and it's all very British and proper. There are plot twists and the climax is clever and worth waiting for, although as a whole the film has dated somewhat. Quite hard to see now, seemingly only available on the Sony 6 film box set DVD "Icons of Suspense", which is worth a purchase due to it having 5 other hard to see Hammer thrillers. So "The Snorkel" gets a thumbs up from me.

A plot common to quite a few suspense movies: apparently good guy gains affection of family, the better to obtain his greedy objectives. The alibi he creates for murder may have been clever in 1958 but today's technology would make it seem obvious.

However, the plot resolves itself to a showdown between the killer and a little girl. While the tale may echo Cape Fear, The Night of the Hunter etc, without their panache, the ultimate resolution is more like Wait Until Dark and the climax is carried off with as much tension and almost as much success. It must be nearly 30 years since I first saw both films - and I recall this climax as clearly as the better known Arkin-Hepburn performance.

This is another of the underrated and seldom seen suspense films that Hammer put out in the late 1950's, early 60's. It has sort of a Columbo flavor to it as we see the sinister Van Eyck very creatively murdering his wife in the opening scenes and spending the rest of the film attempting to convince a suspicious niece that he is innocent. It is a very atmospheric black and white film, a media which should be taken advantage of more even today as a tool to establish mood. Van Eyck is superb as the villain and the supporting cast is first rate. The Snorkel is not really a classic but is solid and holds up fairly well after almost half a century. Catch this one on cable or video when you can, you won't be disappointed.

Poor Candy Brown (Mandy Miller). She cannot get anybody to believe her. She's 100% certain that her cold blooded stepfather Paul Decker (Peter van Eyck) has murdered her mother, despite the evidence seeming to indicate that the woman committed suicide. Mandy, who also believes in her heart that Paul had similarly murdered her father once upon a time, sticks to her guns. But the adults around her keep stubbornly insisting that she *must* be making all of this up.

It's easy to be on Candy's side here. With so many thick headed adult characters, you truly feel her frustration and desperation. Will she ever obtain the proof she needs that Paul is a creep? People like her chaperone Jean Edwards (Betta St. John, "The City of the Dead"), Mr. Wilson (William Franklyn), or the hearty police inspector (Gregoire Aslan) refuse to take her seriously, even though she doesn't seem to be the sort of girl who'd be prone to flights of fancy.

The suspense lies not in a "did he or didn't he" scenario - we see Paul murder Candy's mother in the quiet, ingenious opening set piece. The title object plays a pivotal role. Rather, the tension arises in Candy's predicament, and whether or not she'll be vindicated before the evil Paul strikes again. And we know it's possible. The looks he keeps giving her show that he thinks that he'll have to kill her just to shut her up.

Efficient direction by Oscar winning cinematographer Guy Green ("Great Expectations", 1946) and sharp black & white photography make this a fine entertainment, as well as strong performances from all concerned. Miller makes Candy a sympathetic character, and with his facial features van Eyck was obviously a natural for screen villainy.

This viewer would suggest that fans of Hammer horror give features like this a try, just to show that the famed British studio wasn't just a one trick pony.

Seven out of 10.

The beginning of this film is very strange with a man, Paul Decker, (Peter Van Eyck) crawling around in a dark room and turning off various connections and inserting hoses and then you see him wearing a snorkel. As the film moves on you begin to realize just what is going on and discover that Paul Decker is up to no good and has caused many deaths. There is a daughter who becomes suspicious of her father Paul Decker and she is constantly watching him and even goes to the police, but no one believes her. Jean Edwards, (Betta St. John) tries to help Paul's daughter because she also has a love relationship with Paul, and the daughter and father definitely do not get along. This film will hold your interest and entertain you right to the very end, which is really funny. Enjoy

Set in Italy in an ornate villa, you see the crime from the beginning, and how it is pulled off in detail. An apparently fortune hunting husband, Paul Decker (Peter van Eyck), has put a powerful sedative in his wealthy wife's drink causing her to fall into a deep sleep, has taped up the windows, locked the doors to the room she is in, and turns on the gas in the room. He dons a snorkel connected to air coming from outside and stays in the room until the next morning when the servants arrive. He then hides in a section under the floor, with the opening to this compartment hidden by a throw rug. The servants find their dead mistress, call the police, and the woman's death is ruled a suicide. The murdering husband slips out and leaves after everybody has left the villa.

The dead woman's daughter, Candy, about 13, is not buying it. She says she saw the man kill her father - his death was ruled an accident - and says that her mother had no reason to kill herself, especially on the day she was returning home from boarding school. But nobody believes her and her stepfather has a passport stamped by the Italian authorities saying he came back to Italy from France the day after his wife died.

So the rest of the film is a tense cat and mouse game between Candy and her stepfather, with her trying to figure out how he did what he did, and with nobody believing her, and her stepdad doing a good job of playing the grieving husband. He charms the close family friend caring for Candy, and the police seem determined to close the case and call this a suicide because, after all, for the husband to have done it he would have had to be in the locked room the entire time that the gas was on AND live. Of course, the answer is in the movie title, and somehow I think Columbo would have had a harder look at the stepfather than the police did here. In fact, this is set up very much like an episode of Columbo - you see the crime, you see the criminal, but Columbo has to prove what he suspects going initially only on a hunch.

There is a terrific twist at the end and is well worth sticking around to see. Let's just say the ending is heavy.

Since we know the identity of the killer from the beginning the only question is how he will be caught.The adults in this film act like children and vice versa.The fact that strange suspicious events are occurring does not seem to make the adults investigate further,rather than telling the poor girl that see is going mad.The ending has a great deal of irony and makes up for any previous plot defects.

Out of Hammer Films, The Snorkel is directed by Guy Green and co-written by Anthony Dawson, Peter Myers & Jimmy Sangster. It stars Peter van Eyck, Betta St. John, Mandy Miller, Gregoire Aslan & William Franklyn (Wilson). Music is by Francis Chagrin and cinematography by Jack Asher.

There is no plot synopsis needed for The Snorkel because it takes us straight into the story by having us witness the perfect murder of a wife and mother, and we know who perpetrated it as well, it's the husband! There's a gimmick, the snorkel of the title, and film's success mostly hinges on a devilish twist for the finale. In between the plot revolves around the daughter of the deceased, Candy (Miller), trying to prove her stepfather has killed her mom even though it appears near impossible for him to have done so. Naturally sadistic dad has plans for Candy as well.

Coming as it did during Hammer's run of colour laden reinventions of the Universal monsters, The Snorkel, in black and white, received very little attention at home and abroad. Hammer would release in the 60s, post the success of Psycho, a number of very good black and white psychological thrillers such as Taste of Fear, Paranoiac, Nightmare and Maniac, this period of Hammer film would certainly have seen The Snorkel getting more attention publicly. However, although bad timing can account for some of the reason it was an unsuccessful release, the truth of the matter is that it's just not particularly memorable outside of the gimmick and denouement, and even then with the finale it loses dramatic impact by going on 5 minutes too long for what one imagines was a censor avoiding appeasement. A shame because acting is mostly good, Jack Asher's camera work holds the eyes and production value is higher than expected (location for the shoot was San Remo in Italy).

Undeniably it's got an interesting premise at heart, but it is kind of silly when examined still further. Making this a cautiously recommended Hammer thriller for those who have yet to see the far better films of its type that the company produced in the 60s. 5/10

A little-known picture sporting an amusing title, "The Snorkel" yet reveals itself to be an excellent suspenser; a genuine sleeper that may be finding some latter-day acclaim thanks to this great-looking print in the Hammer "Icons of Suspense" DVD box set. Released in 1958 by Hammer Studios, shortly after the famed British filmmaking independent began its reign of the Gothic horror niche with that year's "The Curse of Frankenstein," the picture is a tale of murder and suspense without being an actual mystery. In the film's very first scene, we are privy to the central murder and made aware of how the killer contrives to make his victim look like a suicide. Using the titular gizmo, Paul Decker (played with icy Germanic menace by Peter van Eyck) manages to stay alive in a sealed room while he asphyxiates his wife with gas. He then hides beneath a covered trapdoor in the floor, leading the local authorities in the French/Italian border region (the locale in the film IS vitally important to its plot) to automatically render that verdict of suicide. But Decker's stepdaughter, Candy (14-year-old former child actress Mandy Miller, here in her final film), knows better, already suspecting him of having drowned her dad several years before. Too bad, though, that no one will believe her, including her beautiful nanny, Jean (Betta St. John, who many viewers will recall from the 1960 fright classic "Horror Hotel"), resulting in quite a nail-biting game of cat and mouse between Candy and the increasingly dangerous Decker. And this desperate standoff between the two turns more and more suspenseful as the viewer wonders just how--or if--Candy will ever prove her claim to the authorities before the killer manages to finish her off!

van Eyck, it must be said, is truly excellent as the cold-blooded Decker, while Mandy, appealing as can be, proves herself a fine little actress as well; likable, cute and effective. The film's direction by Guy Green is gripping and often imaginative, and co-writer Jimmy Sangster (who seems to have been responsible for so many of these Brit thrillers) here provides quite the ingenious and clever story line. The film has been beautifully shot in B&W--the nighttime photography is especially gorgeous--and features any number of impressive sequences. My favorite: Paul tries to "save" (i.e., drown) Candy in the ocean. The film builds to an extremely tense windup, capped off by not one but TWO highly satisfying resolutions. Those viewers who had hoped for some kind of comeuppance as regards Decker will NOT be disappointed! In all, "The Snorkel" is surprisingly likable; indeed, I found myself enjoying it even more than the overly plotted 1963 Hammer film "Maniac" (also written by Sangster), which is to be found on the same disc. And oh...despite the "Maltin Classic Movie Guide"'s assertion that the running time for "The Snorkel" is a brief 74 minutes, the version that I just watched was more like 90. And that's a good thing. With a film like this one--a real treat for young and old alike, and one that you'll likely recommend to your friends--the more, the better!

A surprisingly good British B-Movie from the reliably excellent Guy Green that most people don't know and have never seen but which has built up something of a cult reputation. That fine German actor Peter Van Eyck is the killer who fakes his wife's death by suicide but who remains the prime suspect in her murder in the eyes of his teenage step-daughter, (the once hugely talented child actress Mandy Miller not making a very good transition into adult acting; this was to be her last film). It's hardly Hitchcock but it's nicely plotted and well directed by Green. It also makes good use of its Italian locations and if it remains a minor work in the Green canon it is still a very enjoyable genre piece.

A young girl thinks her stepfather has killed her mother as logically she comitted gas suicide when she was found in a closed room with nobody else. Peter van Eyck is perfect as the perverted threatening stepfather. Lot of twists for an unusual murder case and good cinematography. Director Guy Green was a great cinematographer ("Great Expectations" and other David Lean) and with Jack Cardiff and Freddie Francis, they formed the British Society of Cinematographers.

Candy watched her step-father killer her real father as a child. Later in life the step-father, Paul, kills Candy's mother. Candy knows Paul did it, but cannot prove how it was done. Paul goes after Candy - but will Candy survive?

This isn't a bad little thriller - entertaining in its way.

6/10.

An excellent movie which I've seen many times, every time with great pleasure. Peter van Eyck and Mandy Miller achieve two exceptional roles as the criminal stepfather and the sensitive and intelligent daughter. Guy Green did a really good job directing this movie. Smart cinematography by Jack Asher. The music by Francis Chagrin very appropriate. A little masterpiece. Made in 1958, the year I was born, but who resisted the test of time very well.

British-made film from Anthony Dawson's book about a collegiate young miss who believes her mother's "suicide" was orchestrated by her suave, slimy stepfather, whom she also believes killed her real father some years prior. Simple plot (young girl playing detective) is heightened by fine European locales, decent writing, and an effective cast. Mandy Miller, who amusingly resembles both Phoebe Cates and a Mouseketeer-age Annette Funicello, has some very good scenes sniffing around the hotel room of Peter van Eyck, searching for clues and finding them. But van Eyck (with platinum blonde hair) plays a rather silly, flabby villain, and a few of his exploits are ridiculously far-fetched (such as his response to Miller's nosy dog "Toto", and also in a beach sequence wherein he makes like Jaws). The finale might have been ingenious and creepy, but somebody obviously got cold feet, ending the film with a reassuring "tag" (ostensibly to placate the censors). Too bad...this B-film had the makings of a twisted, twisty little thriller. **1/2 from ****