Overrated and overhyped

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

****SPOILERS**** Based on the forgettable Winston Graham novel by the same name the movie has to do with the murder of violinist Elizabeth Rusman, Rosalie Cuuchley, who's body was found burned to a crisp to conceal her identity from the police by her murdered. The man arrested for Rusman's murder just happened to be the husband of the opera singer Philippa Shelly, Greta Gynt, who was back up ,in playing the violin, in the Oprah that she was playing in Nick Talbot, Hugh Williams. After Philippa accused Nick of making eyes at Rusman they later had a spat where she hit him over the head with a hair brush causing a deep gash in his skull. Not being or willing to explain the injury to the police to avoid embarrassment and being in the present with Rusman just before she was found murdered Nick is arrested and made to stand trial for her death.We have Nick's wife Philippa now checking out all the clues to Rusman's murder that leads her to the private music school in the boondocks that it's suspected Rushman spend the year before as a music teacher. With the principle of the school Sidney Flemming, Marius Goring, not that cooperative Philippa finds the missing photo-Of Rusman- of the year before graduation class that he hid from her. That turned out the piece of evidence that can connect him not only with Rusman as man and wife but the reason behind her murder.***MAJOR SPOILERS**** With Rusman's killer's identity, as her husband Sidney Felmming, exposed he attempts to throw Philippa off a speeding train, on her way back to London, but he's interrupted briefly by this deft man looking for the bathroom or "John" to relive himself who "herd" his confession to Philippa about doing his unfaithful wife Rusman in. That's because her divorcing him would ruin his career in both politics as well as the world of music. It turns out that Flemming now seeing the writing on the wall jumped off the train to his death before the police could arrest him. But it also had Philippa who was with him at the time of him jumping or being pushed off the speeding train in hot water by being arrested for his murder. That's until the deft man turned out to be the not so deft undercover Det. Sgt. Hawkins, Roland Adams, who's testimony totally exonerated Philippa of Flemmings murder!

Near the opening, Hugh Williams' wife, Greta Gynt, in a fit of jealousy, throws an item from her dressing table at him and it glances off his forehead. I was shocked. I'd always thought that the Brits, so skilled in the conversational arts, left those sorts of physical rows to us Americans.I recall such an exchange with my own wife. It was Hallowe'en night and she was dressed in a tiger costume and a plastic Mickey Mouse mask. I'd been baking and began throwing paper-thin cupcake tins at her. She danced from side to side, evading every one. I stopped when I realized what the scene would look like to an outsider: A man in an apron hurling tin cups at someone in a tiger outfit wearing an immutable Mickey Mouse grin. If I hadn't been disabled by laughter I would have tried strangling her, as Hugh Williams strangles the next woman, an ex lover, he has an encounter with.At least that's what he's accused of by Francis X. Sullivan, representing the Crown. Sullivan's booming narration talks us through the prosecution's view of events. The booming baritone is illustrated by multiple flashbacks, all of which make Williams look guilty as hell. All except one, which reveals the murderer to be a man we've never met. Sullivan's hypothetical scenario is interrupted from time to time to show us the rounds of the real killer. He has evidently been told never to blink.The victim, by the way, William's ex lover, is Rosalie Crutchley whose features and dark eyes are both striking and attractive. She was the arid housekeeper in "The Haunting." Williams' wife, Greta Gynt, is horribly upset that her husband is in the Crowbar Hotel and they're dusting off the gallows for him. She helps by following every possible link, and one of them improbably leads her to the murderer. The pace of the story picked up markedly. One of the relay points is the shop of a devoutly Presbyterian photographer in Edinburgh and it's rather funny. Nice to have a light spot in a drama like this. The climax is again violent, recalling Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt." In any case, not to worry. Near the beginning, when Crutchley writes a note to Williams, it's used as evidence against him in court. "Alas, the love of women! it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing." The trouble begins with Lord Byron, then, but it also ends with Williams and Gynt together again, as if they'd never been apart. "I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all." A snappy and suspenseful thriller. I enjoyed it.

This is a superb example of a high-calibre British postwar murder mystery. It was the first film ever directed by Ronnie Neame, who is mostly famous for his classics 'Tunes of Glory' (1960) and 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' (1969). The cinematography by Guy Green (later a director) is inspired and intensely expressionist in the German manner. Neame really shows what a brilliant director he was, not only coaxing excellent performances out of his actors, but keeping the pace and the tension despite the fact that the identity of the murderer is revealed very early. Francis L. Sullivan is, as usual, hair-raising as the prosecuting counsel, although his role should have been more prominent if the film had not been so short at only 76 minutes. (One suspects things were cut out before release, as the buildup of Sullivan really does fizzle out without explanation.) The scenes towards the end of the film really do become incredibly menacing and powerful, as Marius Goring, who plays the murderer in an eerie and intense style, can be seen calculating what he must do next, and sets about it with the methodical determination of a man who now has nothing to lose. Hugh Williams is excellent as the rather formal husband of Greta Gynt, an equally formal wife who is an opera star. It is difficult for such people to cope with real situations of danger, as their behaviour is so mannered, even in their most private moments, that quick thinking and quick action are impossibilities for them, what with all the thawing out they have to do first, not to mention the necessity of changing for dinner, straightening the black tie, and making sure every hair is in place. Sometimes when your life is in danger, such formalities can be rather impeding! But that is part of the irony of this tale, of which a subliminal motif is: things like that don't happen to people like us. In this film, the doomed victim is Rosalie Crutchley, who really was a fascinating wench at that early age, in fact, someone to whom you can imagine almost anything could happen, and it does.

Made in that wartime and post-war black and white era when British movies at least looked good, employed fine character actors and dressed the cast glamorously. Greta Gynt may not be the world's greatest actress but she makes the most of her deadpan, slightly skewed beauty and nasal, refined voice. (Was English her first language?)She convinces least as the star of a ghastly modern opera (music by William Alwyn) in this tale of a man wrongly accused of murder.There's not much suspense. We know from the start that Marius Goring dunnit. And it's always good to see Rosalie Crutchley, who was quite a dish in her day. xxxx