everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

The real-life 20 Questions radio parlour game panel become involved in a murder mystery. The BBC stars play themselves, and come across as natural and witty, especially Jeanne de Casalis and Richard Dimbleby. There are a lot of in-jokes, several referring back to the wartime radio comedy ITMA, in which Jack Train played a bibulous Colonel. (His catchphrase was "I don't mind if I do.") There is a rather tasteless running gag about his drinking habits. The cast also send up the sonorous BBC sign-off of "Goodnight everybody, goodnight."The script is literate, and the clues require a knowledge of Shakespeare. Rona Anderson (later Mrs Gordon Jackson) is excellent as an aspiring newswoman who finds she's disbarred from the Cheshire Cheese. It's a pub, and in those days women were only allowed in the restaurant. Who wants to go back to the 50s? (30 years later, bar staff were grudgingly coming round to the idea that they might take orders from women – you just had to stand there for half an hour while they ignored you.)

As a low budget British crime film mixing fact and fiction, THE 20 QUESTIONS MURDER MYSTERY works far better than the previous attempt I saw, THE BRASS MONKEY. This one takes the real-life participants of the radio quiz show '20 Questions' and incorporates them into a plot involving a vengeful murderer who gradually works his way through a group of old soldiers. His modus operandi is to send in clues and puzzles to the '20 Questions' team before committing each crime. It's a novel premise and one that works quite well thanks to the literate script. The director, Paul L. Stein, had a lengthy career that started out in German silent cinema before he fled to the UK in 1938 and became a film director over here. He died shortly after this production, leaving the film a fitting testament to his talents.Fans of the genre will recognise various tropes here, from the intrepid reporter running rings around the police to the villain with his secret motive and the well-staged and atmospheric murders which feel like they're out of an Edgar Wallace novel. As the reporter hero, the Canadian born Robert Beatty had one of the longest careers in Hollywood history and does a fine job, and Rona Anderson is ahead of the times as the sharp female reporter. Once again, Wally Patch (SALUTE THE TOFF) steals every scene as the humorous cop assigned to bodyguard duty to protect the equally funny Jack Train, and Kynaston Reeves plays in support.

Based around a guessing game radio show that that was very popular in America and the UK in the 40s and 50s, this film stars the cast of the British version. An anonymous listener is mailing questions into the show to be solved on the air, and these clues are lining up with actual murders being committed, so it's up to our radio heroes to decipher the clues for each new letter before it's too late and the murder committed.It's old, creaky, but also quaint and light hearted with all murder and violence happening off-screen. I imagine people who were familiar with the UK program got more miles out of this than the rest of us as there are a number of in-jokes based on the panelists personalities (particularly Jack Train, who seems to be the goofball of the otherwise stuffy group), but it's still a fun, quick Sunday afternoon-type whodunit if you like the sort and even if you've never heard of the show.

The programme "20 Questions" was a very popular programme on BBC radio.So the producers clearly had the idea of cashing in on its popularity at the cinema.So they concocted this film.The first 10 minutes and the last 5 are a recreation of a show.The prospective murderer manages to get a topic u8sed which would supposedly be a clue to his first murder.Now why he would do that and why anyone would guess it was a clue is never explained.After 2 murders it is realised that this is a clue.However the lack of tension is a real problem as the real murderer is easy to guess.The last clue is rather baffling leading everyone in the wrong direction.So instead of going to kill someone he had a grudge against he decides to kill a woman reporter who he believes could recognise him.Now bearing in mind that the murderer had dispatched his victims in about 5 seconds flat,he becomes involved in a long drawn out climax in the reporters flat where he talks about killing her and of course in the end the police lead by another reporter,Robert Beatty,get to the flat in the knick of time to save the woman.This film lasts 93minutes and it is about 20 minutes too long.It is directed in a perfunctory manner which robs the film of any suspense.