User Reviews

Detective Inspector Harris (Cyril Chamberlain) investigates the murder of a French circus performer called Joe Hartier whose motorcycle had been sabotaged by sugar being added to the fuel tank. As he was performing his act, 'The Wall Of Death', the engine packed up causing him to fall twenty feet to his death with his motorcycle crashing on top of him. Hartier's wife, Nina (Vanda Godsell), a fellow performer, was having an affair with the trapeze artist Rudy Schmidt (Ferdy Mayne) and, on questioning the deceased's mother in France, it is established that she disapproved of her son marrying her because she felt that she was only after his money. Meanwhile, Hartier's mechanic, Watts, has disappeared and it transpires that he had a row with him and Nina over her cat, which has vanished. Did he kill him in a fit of temper or did Schmidt do it so he could marry Nina? Watts is promptly found and exonerated, but Schmidt is arrested at the Port of Dover attempting to skip the country. He informs Harris that he had lost interest in Nina because he considered her to be a dangerous woman who always stops at nothing to get what she wants. Harris believes him to be innocent, but detains him for further questioning anyway. The Detective Inspector has a hunch that it will be more fruitful to find Nina's missing cat, which she calls her "lucky cat". Could it hold a vital clue in unmasking Hartier's killer and will it prove to be an unlucky animal for him or her and perhaps "lucky" for somebody else?

Efficient, smart and unpretentious whodunit from the excellent series of Scotland Yard crime featurettes. The script, co-authored by director Montgomery Tully, is plausible and plays as fair as can be with the audience with all the red herrings and clues leading to a logical and surprising denouement. Cyril Chamberlain, whom I was always used to seeing play slimy villains, proves himself of being equally capable of playing somebody on the other side of the law and Vanda Godsell is good as the continental circus performer and scheming wife Nina. I have seen her in countless British 'B's'; usually playing unscrupulous and scheming middle aged wives and here she plays a nice variant on that part. It is remarkable just how much plot and different geographical locations that the film makers were often able to cram into these little films. Here we get a sequence set in rural France, for instance, and although I suspect that it was shot somewhere in the home counties within a stone's throw of the studio with a couple of old Citroen saloon cop cars thrown in, the French atmosphere is quite convincingly conveyed in just that tiny little sequence. Director Montgomery Tully does his usual accomplished job moving the action along at a good pace and all the other technical credits are up to par.