Was geschah im College

"Murder on the Campus" was Michael Winner's second film. It was actually made in England in 1957 under the title "The Clock Strikes Eight". It is a very routine muder mystery with little to recommend it. It is what was known as a "Quota Quickie", a second feature, made on the cheap to enable British theatre owners to fulfill their quota - a legal requirement that a set percentage of all footage shown in British movie theatres had to be British in origin.

A quickie quota B movie, at least you can gauge the evolution of Michael Winner as a film director.

Murder on the Campus is an early work that Winner wrote and directed. Mark Kingston (Terence Longdon) is a journalist who is investigating the death of his brother who was a student at Cambridge. The police think it was a suicide.

The police think Kingston is a nuisance who just gets in the way. However as soon as Kingston arrives on the scene, there are several other suspicious deaths.

There is something about the university accommodation that is of interest to someone.

This is a brisk and lively film, there are several suspects. You would probably gather that the most unlikely people are likely to be culprits.

It might not make much sense but Winner was a determined director. Within a few years after the release of this film he made it to Hollywood.

Murder on The Campus is very much a B movie, it's not one I think many who saw it would have remembered for very long, as there is very little that's unique or exciting about it. That's said it's still an enhenjoyable watch, with a few twists and a few moments of intrigue. The acting is decent, solid enough, Longdon is solid in the lead role. I think of the fifties and sixties as a classic time for whodunnits, sadly this isn't one of the obscure gems.

Worth a look, but not one you'll remember for very long.

A reporter (Terence Longdon) probes the mysterious death of his brother, who fell out of the window of his college dorm room. Without anything to go on, except his own curiosity, Longdon begins asking questions. When the police and the college staff are evasive in their answers, he digs in his heels and starts his own probe. Longdon turns to his brother's classmates and friends. He schedules a meeting with a student who saw someone walking on the roof of his brother's apartment on the night he fell. But minutes before the meeting time, the student is found dead, another victim of an accident. Now even the police are willing to believe that there is more here than just two accidental deaths.

The print I saw had the title, Murder On The Campus, and ran the full 61 minutes. Finally, the 3.5 viewer rating is ridiculous. This is a well made British B mystery. Nothing terrific but hardly 3.5. Another curious example of how IMDb handles ratings. Don't pass this up because of the rating.

Bearing a 1962 copyright date but with a cast member (Edwin Styles, who plays the college principal) who died in December 1960, this otherwise very routine murder mystery (with the usual noisy jazz score) is enlivened by location work in Cambridge (where the locals in one scene can be seen gathering to enjoy watching the actors at work) and by the erratic direction of a young Michael Winner.

Winner has managed to assemble a cast of familiar faces to go through the motions and the frequent dollies & dissolves create a veneer of sophistication that goes some way towards camouflaging that Winner still hasn't yet mastered getting his eyelines to match during dialogue scenes.