The greatest movie ever made..!

Lack of good storyline.

Fantastic!

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

The Vicious Circle is an underrated little film perfectly capturing the shock of ordered existence being turned absolutely on it's head.It's directed by Gerald Thomas,the screenplays written by Francis Durbridge and stars John Mills,Lionel Jefferies,Roland Culver and Wilfred Hyde-White.When a good friend phones Dr.Howard Latimer(John Mills)and asks him to pick up a famous actress from the airport he obliges.He thinks nothing more of it until he returns home later that night to find her dead in his flat.From this moment on nothing is what it seems.Despite strong evidence against him,laconic Detective Inspector Dane(Roland Culver)becomes convinced of the doctors innocence and seeks to find the truth.Latimer does some digging of his own and learns many of the people he thought he knew are not all they seem.Mills does a grand job in his portrayal of a man whose thrown into a series of situations beyond his control.If there's a downside it's in the character of Latimer.In Hitchcock's hands no doubt we would have been treated to some first rate did he or didn't he do it moments.As it is from the start we know Latimer is innocent and this does rather detract from the sort of film this could have shaped up to be in different hands.Wilfred Hyde-White is a hoot as the man who holds the key to the whole case.Culver and Mills play off against each other nicely and Lionel Jefferies slinks in and out at key moments as slimy news reporter Jeffery Windsor.This is well worth seeking out and deserves more attention than it has received over the years.

I like the phrase "British post war suburban paranoia" that one of the reviewers used. It describes so well the kind of films John Mills excelled in ("The October Man" (1947), "The Long Memory" (1952)) in between "big" pictures ("Scott of the Antartic" (1948) and "War and Peace" (1956)).This distinctly "Eric Ambler" style plot had John Mills playing Dr. Howard Latimer, who promises his friend, Charles, (unseen) to meet a visiting German actress, Frieda Veldon (Lisa Daniely) at the airport. A creepy "reporter" Jeffrey Windsor (Lionel Jeffries) is in his consulting rooms at the time and offers to give him a lift but while he is tracking the actress down Windsor informs him she is already in the car waiting!!! (something fishy is going on!!!). Howard is dropped off for his date and thinks no more about it.The next night he finds her body when he arrives home from work, further more, he finds his friend Charles could not have rung him as he is still in New York and Windsor doesn't seem to exist. Earlier on a patient, Mrs Ambler(Rene Ray) who has been referred to him by Doctor George Kimber (Mervyn Johns) tells of her recurring dream about finding a dead body and a brass candlestick with a square base. It is a nightmare that is coming true for Howard but of course when Detective Inspector Dane (Roland Culver) interviews her, she denies all knowledge of the conversation - the candlestick is later found in the boot of Howard's Daimler.When Howard is lying low, Robert Brady (Wilfred Hyde-White) visits him. He calls himself a "friend" - he has a photo of Windsor that he wants to trade for a box of matches Frieda gave Howard at the airport. Howard returns to the flat, Charles rings and while Howard is on the phone an unknown assailant knocks him out and steals the matches!!! Who can he trust - who hasn't something to hide!!!This is a top thriller - not quite in the same class as "The October Man", but with John Mills doing what he does best - playing ordinary men caught up in impossible mysteries!!!Highly Recommended.

Gerald Thomas directed five ho-hum films in the nineteen fifties before Carry On, Sergeant struck a chord with the brain-dead pre-Multiplexers of the day and this was one of them. Raymond Chandler famously said that the easiest murders to solve are the ones that someone tried too hard with and such is the case here. What we have is a sort of David Mamet scenario lacking Mamet's skill. In the early stages there is a throwaway moment that will prove crucial later. Having met at London airport as a favour to a friend a German actress previously unknown to him, John Mills attempts to light a cigarette in the car en route to London only to find his lighter doesn't work, whereupon the actress offers him a book of matches and tells him to keep them. These are two STRANGERS, remember so in order for this to work the actress must know in advance that 1) Mills smokes at all, 2) he will elect to smoke during the car journey, 3) that he owns a lighter and not matches of his own and 4) that his lighter will fail to work. If stuff like this doesn't bother you none of the rest will, like, for example, a scene towards the end with Mills in his flat talking to his fiancé. He takes a phone call which necessitates him keeping a rendez-vous but rejects the fiancé's offer to go with him. Instead he tosses her a bunch of keys saying 'these are the keys to my flat, let yourself in and wait for me there'. Quite a trick when they are actually IN his flat at the time. On the credit side there are some nice nostalgic views of a long-vanished London that match the long-vanished logic.

This is no minor classic. But I wouldn't dismiss it quite as quickly as my fellow reviewers. It looks and feels rather like one of those British 'Quota quickies' churned out sausage-style by Butchers films in the 1950's and 60's. Which is not a bad thing. It's longer than those efforts, though, and has more 'names' - the star is John Mills.I enjoy the way that the piece depicts safe, sterile suburban middle class life turned upside down. Well, not quite 'turned upside down' exactly: there's a charming little scene where dear Johnnie takes his mind off the fact that he's a man on the run for murder by playing a few rounds of golf. The film has a most agreeable atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. Certainty and normality fray at the edges. Nobody can be trusted. Your smoothly amiable best friend of longstanding just might have it in for you. Your fiancée may not be what she seems.There are some very enjoyable performances. I particularly liked Wilfrid Hyde-White as a civilised but sinister late-night caller. In fact, pretty much everybody in this film does civilised and sinister rather well. Mills is his usual watchable self. The direction is largely uninspired but is nicely unobtrusive: events unfold with pace and sharp simplicity.If you want to catch a true lost masterpiece of suburban British post-war paranoia, look for Lance Comfort's "Pit of Darkness", with William Franklyn as another urbane professional who finds his routine existence up-ended. There's only one moment in 'The Vicious Circle' to match that film for my money. Don't ask me why, but the scene where Mills turns up at a 'social gathering' and finds only an empty apartment flooded with the sound of pre-recorded party chatter unnerves me every time. It seems that there's a tinge of genuine madness and disruption just lurking at the corners of the frame.