User Reviews

Infamous Conduct is one of the episodes from The Scales of Justice series that makes you wonder just exactly where is it heading.

Mr Anthony Searle (Dermot Walsh) is a famous Harley Street plastic surgeon who has been struck off for assaulting a female patient. A woman he was having an affair with and would not leave his wife for.

At the medical tribunal hearing his secretary decides to be vindictive and goes against him. Searle is struck off. His wife no longer wants to know him

Searle goes to his holiday home down the Sussex coast. Wondering what to do in his uncertain future. He meets and soon falls in love with Janet a young artist.

Bliss is short lived. Her cousin comes looking for Searle as his friend has been cut up and needs his wounds treated. Later Searle is called again to do some more serious plastic surgery.

This story could had gone anywhere. Searle trying to clear his good name. Getting involved in a messy divorce with his wife. Being blackmailed by Janet's cousin, after all he is practising medicine while he was struck off.

Instead Searle is forced to do surgery on a prisoner on the run. Searle has to decide whether to own up to the police or forever be involved in working with the criminal underworld.

A simple story but as with other episodes in the Scales of Justice series. It is too leisurely getting to its destination.

Harley Street plastic surgeon Anthony Searle (Dermot Walsh) is facing accusations of misconduct: a woman with whom he was having an affair claimed he assaulted her. But, his young secretary, angry that he was two timing her decided to put the boot in at the hearing and as a result he is struck off by the medical council. His wife Maggie (Nancy Nevison) leaves him and he seeks solace on the Sussex coast where he becomes involved with an attractive young artist called Janet (Bridget Armstrong). However, he gets into trouble when he meets her cousin, a criminal, through his henchman Riki (Terry Wale) who has suffered horrific injuries as a result of being attacked by a razor gang. He demands Searle operate on him to remodel his face, which he does but it does not end there. Next Searle is introduced to Dixon (Ewen Solon), a dangerous armed robber - murderer who has escaped from prison who forces him to give him a new face so that he can flee the country unhindered. When Searle returns to Sussex he finds Janet has gone having left a letter saying that she is getting out of his life completely because she fears that her cousin will forever use her as a hold over him. Heartbroken and alone, Searle decides to flee but that is easier said than done since the cousin has his accomplices follow his every move. Meanwhile, he reads in the paper that Dixon's fellow escapees have been successfully apprehended by the police, but Dixon is still missing. Could that somehow work in Searle's favour and where is Janet?

Compact and engrossing featurette made as part of Anglo Amalgamated's enjoyable The Scales Of Justice series of cinema support features. Its impact is drawn from the fine performances of Dermot Walsh, a regular leading man in British 'B's' throughout the fifties and sixties and Bridget Armstrong who convincingly bring out the emotional element in the story. Searle's wife, Maggie, appears out of the blue at his coastal hideaway in Sussex to say that she is willing to give their marriage another try. But, she makes it clear that if the medical council agrees to reinstate his right to practice after the three year limit she will only be interested in his earning potential confident that his most lucrative patients will return to him at his Harley Street surgery. We can see that his marriage to her was most likely an unhappy one and it was hardly surprising that he sought comfort in other women. The way Walsh and Armstrong interact in their scenes together is very moving such as their indulgence in simple, youthful pursuits such as playing the dodgems at a fairground and catching butterflies, which suggests that they were making up for lost time since due to their unhappy lives - Searle stuck in an unhappy marriage with a nagging and snobbish wife, and Janet forever forced to become involved in her cousin's criminal activities since he was her only living relative - they probably never had the opportunity to have fun before. Both actors offer convincing performances and we can sympathise with their plight. I can assure you, you will be suficiently moved to hope that things work out okay for them in the end. But, as to whether they do, I won't say as I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it.

The film has a fine sense of place and for the era in which it was made, the 1960's, with some attractive south of England coastal locations that are beautifully captured by Jimmy Harvey's beautiful colour camerawork. It is shot in a sort of arty, swinging sixties style, but not to the extent where it looks pretentious and dated while Richard Martin's direction is inventive in its low key way.