Double Confession

This is quite a decent, complex, little British crime drama with Derek Farr as "Jim Medway" who turns up at an English seaside resort whereupon, shortly afterwards, his wife is found murdered in the "White Cottage". The police investigation is soon focussed on him, so he tries to fit up local bigwig "Charlie Durham" (William Hartnell) with whom he has certain history, and finds he has bitten off a bit more than he was expecting to chew. It's a superior first effort from Ken Annakin that capitalises on the quirky novel from John Garden and some solid performances on screen - including an on-form Peter Lorre as Hartnell's slightly bonkers sidekick and local journo "Hilary Boscombe" (Ronald Howard) that keeps the pot boiling well for 80 minutes. Rarely seen nowadays, but worth a watch if you like your mysteries with a little more meat on the bone.

Despite seeing many British 1940s/50s films. this was the first time I had seen "Double Confession".The cast reads like a veritable whose who of well known actors/actresses working in 1950.I have seen Derek Farr playing very anodyne parts in films like "Quiet Wedding" (1941) & its companion film "Quiet Weekend" (1946) but given the right casting he could turn on his thespian power playing the lead in this film.Ronald Howard (who plays the newspaper editor) was 32 when he made this film and looks every inch his father's son.His father being of course the great actor Leslie Howard.Naunton Wayne (in one of his outings without Basil Radford - Charters & Caldicott) plays the police inspector who actually drinks whiskey while on duty!Another film Naunton played solo in 1950 was "Highly Dangerous" with Margaret Lockwood.Kathleen Harrison plays her usual working class role seemingly trying to "pick up" Leslie Dwyer on the beach.Edward Rigby adds his usual colourful local accented character.The only surprise to me was Joan Hopkins whom Derek Farr befriends at the beach resort.I saw a documentary recently and many women who had illegitimate children felt compelled to renounce motherhood for them and send them off for adoption , if it would have caused a family scandal if they had kept them.Joan plays such a mother agonising over this type of moral dilemma.She does have lovely diction and it is always a pleasure to hear beautifully spoken English which actresses were taught in their drama academies at the time.

Unlike the two previous reviewers, I notice the mass of user ratings on IMDb rated this 7.3/10 which is good and I too rated it 7/10.I agree the plotting is a bit confused and could have done with better editing but I enjoyed this film nevertheless.

Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock" seems to have been the inspiration for this intriguing but not very coherent suspense story about murder and sundry underworld goings-on at a seaside resort. The narrative gets stuck somewhere between conventional English murder mystery and American-style noir and just never loosens up, and the sight of all those British holiday-makers lounging around on the beach in long dresses and tweed suits just sums up the ludicrous uptightness that plagues the whole concept. Peter Lorre is brought in to jazz up the proceedings in a rather daring role as a henchman who clearly appears to be carrying a torch for his villainous (male) employer.

This film looks as if it has been cobbled together by a number of writers neither of whom had seen what the others were writing.There are so many contrivances and coincidences that at times make the film seem ludicrous.There seem to be half a dozen films in one,none of which seem to be connected.However there has to be some entertainment value in watching Kathleen Harrison trying to play beach cricket and Leslie Dwyer playing with his model boat in a three piece suit with his trouser legs rolled up.The main plot is just plain daft enlivened by the chalk and cheese performances and pairing of Lorre and Hartnell.There is one scene in the climax with Lorre at full blast which reminds of the scene between him and Bogart in The Maltese Falcon when Bogart takes his gun away.Unfortunately the antics of Lorre nor brief glimpses of familiar faces such as Esme Cannon and a very young Peter Butterworth cannnot save this mess submerging beneath the waves.

This one started with such promise. A man is walking along a crude path from a hilltop to the beach. He is encountered by an old salt who warns him about the dangerous path. He comes to a cottage, but when he hears the door opening he hides, the man leaving the house looks around, has as a smoke, and goes up the path to the top of the hill. When he is out of sight a man's scream rings out. What a great and mysterious set up. Don't get your hopes up, because it is all downhill or treading water from there.

So the next setting is daylight in a beachside amusement park. The man who was hiding in the bushes is asking for a job, (Derek Farr as Jim Medway), but he seems more like he is pumping his old acquaintance for information about two murders the night before. What follows is Medway going to businessman William Hartnell, telling him that he killed his wife (she was the one Medway was going to see at the cottage), but he will tell the police that Hartnell did it because he knows Hartnell was having an affair with his wife. There were plenty of reasons for Hartnell to kill her - Hartnell is married, he didn't want the affair exposed, etc. And Hartnell WAS there. He was the guy leaving the house as Medway approached. Then Medway does what anybody does who threatens a man with lots of power who isn't afraid of violence. He spends a day frolicking at the beach! There is so much going on here it really blunts the power of the story because it has nothing to do with the story and just looks weird in a noir. Medway meets up with a girl who has her own problems - completely non criminal ones. Then there is Hartnell, who to be such a big powerful man of action, really does nothing but pace back and forth in his big office smoking heavily. Peter Lorre is Hartnell's friend who offers to kill Medway and make it look like an accident, and their relationship seems odd. Lorre acts like he looks forward to killing....ANYBODY! And he hovers over Hartnell like he is a little bit in love with him and the sentiment seems to be returned.

The last fifteen minutes or so make it almost worth it, but in the meantime you'll just be asking yourself "Where IS this thing going?".