Vom Täter fehlt jede Spur

In the 1950s, many British film companies recruited American actors to star in their movies. Why? Well, the thought was that these British movies would be much easier to market to the States with a few familiar faces. Generally, these actors were second-tier...good actors but not the super-high priced ones.

"Lady in the Fog" is one of these British films with an American in the lead. Caersar Romero plays Philip O'Dell, a guy who is trying to leave the UK but whose flight is delayed due to fog. During this waiting period, he meets a woman and they talk. Soon she is alerted that her brother is dead...run over in the fog. Considering the brother's unsavory associates, she assumes his death was no accident. But there isn't much to go on or prove her theory, so the police don't take the case. Instead, O'Dell investigates the case himself....and opens up a huge can of worms, so to speak.

The film is very average....a decent story, decent acting. Nothing bad nor outstanding here...the definition of a nice time-passer.

Cesar Romero is an American PI trapped in London, waiting for the fog to lift so his plane can take off. He's passing the time in a bar with Lois Maxwell when a Peeler comes in to use the phone. A man has been struck and killed by a car. Miss Maxwell is convinced that it's her brother, so she and Romero go to look. It's as she feared. She is convinced he was murdered, but Romero's contacts in CID are retired, and there are lots of traffic accidents in Pea-soupers. So Romero and Miss Maxwell investigate.

It's a rather old-fashioned movie for 1952; hardly surprising, considering it's financed by Lippert and Hammer. Nonetheless, it's a nicely put together thriller, that leads to some unlikely places, with decent performances; director Sam Newfield, who spent too much of his career at PRC, demonstrates that given a decent script, he can turn out a good movie.

In the thick fog of a London night a man is deliberately run over by a car driven by a woman: he was Denny McMara. The police classify it as an hit-and-run accident, but the young Heather, Danny's sister - basing on her own "intuition", but lacking of evidence -, is convinced it was a murder. An American magazine writer, Philip O'Dell, mainly motivated by the sex appeal of Heather, wants to help her prove her point, though Scotland Yard's inspector Rigby warns him not to mix, as an amateur private eye, with the sound investigation routine of the police.

But O'Dell, little by little, manages to uncover a ring of 4/5 people that would have had interest in killing Danny, their motive, and even the actual murderer. The problem is that every evidence he finds happen to be destroyed before he can show it to the Yard's inspector. At the end Rigby himself congratulates with O'Dell for solving the mystery: and we don't know why, because all the members of the gang are dead, by now, so the eventual evidence in the end is as feeble as it was in the beginning.

Quite cumbersome and totally predictable film, in whose plot nothing new happens; to make it worse, the comic traits are just laughable (ironically), not amusing.

O'Dell and Heather, at the end, of course, marry, which doesn't make the film any better, on the contrary...

Journalist Cesar Romero (O'Dell) spends some time at the beginning of the film mixing up a cocktail which firstly explodes before you can drink it. That along with the sequences of the 'lady in the fog' of the title at the wheel of her car are the only memorable parts to the film. What a shame.

This film could have been good if the story had stuck with mystery and tension. Unfortunately, being British, guess what? We get comedy oom-pah-pah music when showing scenes with policemen and also with a travel booking clerk. It's just so funny?! The cast are all forgettable in this nonsense that seems complicated because it fails to keep you engaged.

Romero's career must have been at rock bottom at this point. Thankfully, Batman was on the horizon for him in the next decade.

Denny McMara is the victim of a hit and run, late at night, in a foggy London. His sister Heather enlists the help of American writer, Phil O'Dell, to track down his killer.

It's a mystery, a thriller and a comedy, there are some very funny scenes throughout this shorter length film. Some of the reviews are a little harsh, it's a lighter toned movie, and for the time it's a decent one. Some scenes will make you want to cringe, but on the whole, it's decent.

There's definitely a good level of suspense, and you have to wait until fairly late on to learn exactly who, how and what.

Plenty of laughs, from the opening scenes with the cocktails, to the hilarious aeroplane ticket officer.

There are some fine performances, Cesar Romero and Lois Maxwell are both rather good, and for the time, I'd say the acting overall is good, no fluffs.

6/10.