User Reviews

This is a 'quota quickie' which at least has brevity on its side: clocking in at under 62 minutes, it has enough pace to avoid boring the audience.

We are presented with the curious spectacle of John Horsley, later famous as Doc Morrissey in "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin", cast as a man of action, possibly the hero, possibly the criminal. He is given lines like "I'll be there or bust!" - and one can obviously only think of We have female parts barely sketched in by the screenwriter, Doreen Montgomery; Rona Anderson as the bland romantic lead Sallie and Mary Jones does a lot of sub-Celia Johnson lower-lip trembling as Florence Cole. Kenneth Kent treats it as if a pantomime and why not, frankly? Dialogue such as "Have a care my dear! Indiscriminate tippling can lead to alcoholism. So unattractive, especially in women" and "Put these effusions in the fire" really do beg to be delivered with a certain ripe pomposity and KK certainly delivers.

John Le Mesurier's puritan father is a nice decoy within the context of the film's Whodunnit nature; blundering into the courtroom declaiming "I am the father of the unhappy Madeline Tilliard!" as if he was in a Victorian theatrical melodrama. It is a shame we don't get to hear that much more from this character, speaking of "the devil's brew" and his sinful daughter, associated with "furtive meetings, whisperings in the dark and heedless laughter..." "A Time to Kill" is frankly routine, often humdrum fare, but still remains infinitely more watchable than many current Hollywood products of double, even triple, its length. We get to hear good old English phrases like "who is this preposterous man!?" "good hunting!" "rigmarole" "oh, what 'ave I said..." and "he's a fiend for fresh air, Mr 'Astings!" Which is all preferable to a punch on the nose, or an hour's daytime television.

A Sussex chemist called Peter Hastings (John Horsley) becomes the chief suspect in a murder investigation when both he and his mistress, the fortune teller Madeleine Tilliard both drink Strychnine. But only the girl dies and Hastings escapes with only minor effects. Since he is a chemist and has knowledge of poisons and worse still, a bottle of Strychnine is found in his medicine cabinet, Inspector Simmons (Russell Napier) suspects "a double bluff". Simmons has a lot on his plate since he is constantly being badgered by a young reporter called Dennis Willows (Jack Watling) who is always on the look out for a big story. It transpires that Hastings is a lady's man who was even involved with Dr Cole's (Kenneth Kent) wife, Florence, whom was being blackmailed for large sums of money by the poisoned woman. We learn that Hastings broke off his engagement with his fiancée, Sallie Harbord (Rona Anderson) because Madeline had a hold over him. Many years ago, when he was a young chemist he sold a secret formula to a rival company in order to pay off a three-hundred-pound gambling debt. Madeleine learned of this and was blackmailing him not for money but marriage. When Florence is brutally murdered with a scalpel, Inspector Simmons warns Hastings not to leave town and places an officer on his door to make sure he does not. In the meantime, Hastings has been patching things up with Sallie who investigates the case on his behalf. A visit to Madeline's fanatical puritan father, Phineas (John Le Mesurier) uncovers a photograph of Madeleine with her secret lover only his face has been conveniently rubbed out. But a sign in the background advertising a seaside hotel takes her to Brighton with Willows in pursuit. From there she rings Hastings and tells him that they will have to stay overnight as the hotel manager has to dig out an old register to find out the name of the man Madeleine stayed there with at the time. Hastings knocks out the police officer stationed outside his home and joins the pair at the hotel. But during the night the killer very nearly strikes again...

No not the Sandra Bullock blockbuster but an unremarkable British quota quickie whodunit from editor turned director Charles Saunders. Regrettably, the vast majority of his output in this capacity consisted of routine b-pics and anybody who has seen such gems as The Narrowing Circle (1956) will probably admit that some of them were pretty awful. This offering is by no means terrible but Doreen Montgomery's (who contributed to the marvellous 1960's TV series, The Human Jungle) screenplay has a rushed feel to it and the clues don't run smoothly into each other to reveal a none too surprising denouement. Saunders manages to stage an effectively eerie opening in which a blackmail victim arrives to pay off her blackmailer in the grounds of an abandoned country mansion at night who appears from the shadows in a sinister Ku Klux Klan type hood to the strains of Frank Chacksfield's appropriately creepy score. But the remainder of the film fails to live up to this initial promise. But the main pleasure you will get out of watching this is the number of actors who would later become household names in various British TV classics that turn up. There's Joan Hickson (Miss Marple) who offers one of her many supporting roles as dotty, eccentric spinsters as a dog loving nosy neighbour, "We don't want to get involved in any nasty business do we Putzi Wutsi?" But it is her beloved dog that provides Inspector Simmons with the vital clue that brings the killer to book - the dog loved his shaving lotion! John Le Mesurier (Dad's Army) is in there too as the murder victim's fanatical puritan father and he seems somewhat miscast, which adds to the enjoyment of his part. He bursts into the courtroom and shouting lines like "Alcohol, the devil's brew, the snare that encompasses the ruin". And last but not least in one of the most minimal parts, there's Dandy Nichols, who within a decade after appearing in this would become known to millions as Alf Garnet's long-suffering wife in Till Death Us Do Part. She plays a waitress in a café and only has one line: "Beans is off". But it must be said that even here she makes the most minimal of roles memorable. Saunders stages their appearances in eye catching ways rather like star cameos are in bigger films. One wonders if the director sensed that they would go on to do bigger and better things than this and made sure that their contributions here stood out as if they were already big stars.

An hour-long British murder mystery with some complexity to it, although the direction is so shabby that it takes some of the edge off what should be a more compelling film. This one features opening death by poisoning and goes on to throw in a lot of suspects and suspicious behaviour; the best element is the presence of a sack-headed killer looking more than a little like Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part 2! Not bad, but too cheap to be more than a curiosity.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't say it's a corny picture, but I expected a little better from this little British production. It's really an author film. Charles Saunders made all his films for Fortress Prod, as I can read on IMDb. I did not know that before.

Not a masterpiece, not even a curiosity. A murder film, nothing more. The classic scheme of the innocent man accused of a crime he did not commit. Talk, a little suspense, very little action, but a few good camera shots.

Nevertheless a rare movie. Perhaps available on UK channels.

Good Luck