Der perfekte Mörder

Low budget noir with deep shadows. Greta Gynt is great as the nasal-voiced adulteress. Her tacky furnishings (lampshades like skirts and satin sheets) betray her inner rottenness - spot those coiled serpents on the shoulders of her nightdress! Eric Portman is as brilliant and compelling - and sympathetic - as ever. If you like this, see him in A Canterbuy Tale. xxxxx

Poor Eric Portman is saddled with a habitually unfaithful wife. He decides to commit the perfect crime, and murder the nasty wife's lover (Dennis Price). Problem is, he soon finds out that little woman has yet another lover. What is our poor, DEAR MURDERER going to do now?

This is a perfect English mystery movie for those who love English mystery movies. The murderer is rather sympathetic. The crime is charmingly convoluted -- it might even give Sherlock Holmes a few rough moments. And the Scotland Yard detective is like all Scotland Yard detectives (when not co-starring with some brilliant amateur detective) -- smarter than he looks, visiting his quarry constantly with "just a few questions, sir." Those who are more used to American films might think the pace a bit slow (particularly at the beginning), though this pacing really does pay off with an unexpectedly twisty final reel.

If you don't really like old movies, this is not for you. But if you remember being happy when you found that the late show you were about to watch was going to be an English mystery, this will be perfect. Note, though, nothing really stands out about this one. It's all crisply enough acted, with a few noir trappings imported from America for the finale. But ultimately , all it is is a jolly good show, best enjoyed with a crackling fire and some mighty good sherry.

I happened across this movie on Netflix and, due to my love of noir films and its 94-minute running time, I decided to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

The plot set-up is fairly simple: a wealthy British businessman returns home early from a business trip to America, discovers evidence that his younger, seemingly devoted wife has been stepping out on him, and decides to get his revenge. That's where the fun begins.

His seemingly foolproof plan doesn't quite go exactly as he thought, which is the case in a lot of movies like this. What separated this movie, though, was that even as the husband's plan began to lose its original shape, what he was able to mold it into became even more diabolical than it was at first intended.

Although all of the cast does a decent job in their assigned roles, it's really the lead roles of the husband and wife played by Eric Portman and Greta Gynt, that deserve special mention. Both play their parts quite well, Portman as the well-spoken, egotistical husband, and Gynt as the manipulative, philandering wife.

I especially enjoyed watching Gynt's character, who plays the role of the femme fatale here as a treacherous vixen who could stand alongside noir's best. In certain movies where wives seek the affections of someone other than their respective mate, they're portrayed as a character who just desires attention from an emotionally distant husband, or one who is either emotionally or physically abused at the hands of a domineering brute. Here, however, she is a truly terrible person, and some of the reactions she gives when hearing information that would normally be very troubling to a person is pretty fascinating.

I don't want to build this movie up as anything more than it is, an enjoyable hour-and-a-half of a formula most of us have seen before, but check this one out on a rainy day when you don't feel like going outside. You might find that it's a bit better than you'd expected.

"Dear Murderer" is a short, very intriguing British mystery that caught my interest by its title. After a long work-related trip, Eric Portman comes home to find his wife not home. But, in fact we find out real quick that he knows a lot more than that and he's intent on killing the other fellow, played by Dennis Price. Greta Gynt is the unfaithful wife. But then there's a twist; Eric soon finds out there's more than one. He can't kill them all, Dennis says. But Eric finds a way to pin the murder on the other other fellow. All these convoluted schemes made for a very complicated but absorbing mess. I liked this very much with its layered plots developing more and more as it went along, but, by the end, the viewer really has very few people to feel any compassion for and therefore it feels a bit mean-spirited and/or downbeat. But the irony of the unexpected, Eric Portman's acting, and his character's egotistical disposition make up for any flaws this film may have. Sit back for a very perverse experience of the British kind.

A day or so ago I commented on the film (made only a few years after wards) that somehow resembles this one: FOOTSTEPS IN THE FOG. The basic story is of two ill-matched people who are in a marriage from hell. FOOTSTEPS was about a Victorian gentleman who murders his first wife, only to be blackmailed into marrying his socially ambitious maid, and how he starts conspiring to get rid of her as well. The problem with FOOTSTEPS was a lack of decently spirited direction. It lacked spark and pace, and gets boring. The cast tries, but it does not help enough.

Not so with DEAR MURDERER. Unlike FOOTSTEPS (which was a Hollywood product - so it had to be burdened by larger budgets, and needed vervier directing), DEAR MURDERER is typical of the success story of British cinema - how with a concentration on minimal effect their films are sharper than bloated productions like FOOTSTEPS . The plot is also more devious.

In FOOTSTEPS Jean Simmons' ambitions help destroy her and Steward Granger. But one can easily understand where she is coming from, as we tend to sympathize with people trying to pull themselves out of lower classes into upper classes. But this is dented because she is a blackmailer (though Granger's misdeed deserves such a punishment). Here, Eric Portman is married to a perpetual flirt (Greta Gynt) who despises him. She has been carrying on with Dennis Price, and Portman decides to kill Price. Yet, even in the process of doing just that, Portman gets to know his victim, and realizes that if he had not been sleeping with his wife Price could have been a good friend of his. So his guilt is increased when he discovers that Gynt and Price had broken up their relationship shortly before the murder.

See: the story is still melodramatic, but the characterization is more interesting. So is the difference regarding Gynt's personae, as opposed to her opposite number in FOOTSTEPS. Simmons is socially ambitions, but the audience can accept that. Gynt is sluttish and also unlikeable. She is tired about the marriage to Portman (who does, misguidedly, love Gynt), and eventually wonders how she can end it - quickly. The film speeds to it's conclusion. If one dislikes Portman's Nazi in 49TH PARALLEL (his best remembered performance), his performance here certainly makes up for his totally unsympathetic villainy there.

I have no problem recommending this film to the readers of these reviews. And of recommending it over FOOTSTEP IN THE FOG to them as well.