The Worst Film Ever

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

'Man Accused' was a low budget mystery story produced by the legendary Danziger brothers, Edward and Harry, and directed by Montgomery Tully concerning a woman who begins to have doubts about the probity of her fiancé when a jewel robbery and murder take place. Is he guilty or not? The film is mainly set in one house with a few location shots and comes in at just under an hour. Is it any good? Well, it is bearable.As the two main leads Ronald Howard (as Bob Jenson) and Carol Marsh (as Kathy Riddle) are colourless but they are supported by good players like Ian Fleming, Robert Dorning and Stuart Saunders. Catherina Ferraz as the suspicious housekeeper is good value. Albert Elms was responsible apparently for some of the music.As a time filler it could be worse.

The Danziger Brothers had a dreadful reputation during the late fifties and early sixties, but this is the first of their quickies that I've seen that truly lives down to their ill repute. It's so stilted it resembles a parody, and nobody seems to have told director Montgomery Tully about the invention of the close up (it was probably shot so quickly he didn't have time for them); even the location sequences are uninteresting.Poor Carol Marsh - so memorable in 'Brighton Rock' and 'Dracula' - is left to founder by her director, and this proved to be her last film. The most suspenseful aspect of the film is whether it's going to opt for the boring option of making handsome Ronald Howard innocent after all; if he'd turned out to be guilty it might have justified the film's existence, but even the title - 'Man Accused' rather than, say 'Man Suspected' - makes it rather obvious how things are going to turn out.However I'll give it an extra star for the fact that it did deliver a few surprises towards the end; plus an observation worthy of a Harry Enfield spoof that the real jewel thief "would never trust a man who drinks or a woman. Too erratic."

A rich young lady is about to marry. However, at her engagement party, an insurance investigator announces that he recognizes the fiancé--he's a man who has likely killed two previous fiancées in order to steal their jewels!! She naturally doesn't believe the story but soon the evidence all seems to point to the boyfriend. And, eventually, the police end up arresting the guy for not just robbery but murder. Can there be more to the story than this?! This is a very low budget British film--sort of like a British B-movie due to its production values and short running time (slightly less than an hour). However, unlike what you might expect from a B, it's a pretty good little mystery. In fact, I might have given it a score higher than 6 if the writing had been excellent throughout. However, there were two portions that were very rough. First, when the film began, there was too much exposition. They tried to tell the back story TOO FAST--and it sounded very unnatural. They should have just doled out this information slowly instead of the clumsy conversation at the start. Second, late in the film, a wrongly accused man is EASILY able to convince others to help him escape from jail--and it's remarkably easy. And, he wraps everything up perfectly!! This is so clichéd--and it wasn't necessary. They easily could have had the man in prison convince the authorities to investigate his theory of the real culprit--and arranged for a fake escape so they could monitor this final showdown. Or, they could have simply INVESTIGATED THE CASE and discovered the bad guy and not used these stupid clichés. It's sad, as they really had a dandy film here--but it just got a bit sloppy at times.

Man Accused (1959)A slight affair, well enough done to keep you going, but not so well written, and a bit of a contrived plot. But hey, it's less than an hour, and is as distracting and convincing as most good television (at the same length). Is there anything remarkable here, any actors to appreciate, anyone behind the scenes? Not that I can find. Here in the US were are familiar (some of us) with the smaller studios like Republic and Monogram who were making B-movies, some of which are pretty interesting (and a bit different from the larger studio fare). "Man Accused" is a British small studio film, produced by the Danzigers, and it had the same role, aimed at both the second feature slot and at television. In fact, this is shot not in widescreen (which had become essentially standard by 1959) but in normal old 4:3 ratio, probably with t.v. in mind.You might notice one actor is named Ian Fleming, and no, it's not the famous Fleming, Ian Fleming of James Bond fame, but an Aussie actor. That would have been fun. And the leading woman, who is a bit too cheerfully insistent throughout, is Carol Marsh, who played a wonderful Alice in the 1949 "Alice in Wonderland."