Der Mann im Rücksitz

A woman is murdered, and Rona Anderson may have taken a picture of the event. This much is known, so John Bentley winds up protecting her.

Bentley enters the proceedings when her boss asks him to find her. He works for Garry Marsh. Marsh is the best thing about the whole movie, complaining about expenses, telling murderous thugs they can't do that, and so forth; he's quite funny in his pomposity. Otherwise, director John Gilling fails to do anything, either in the way of suspense or sexual tension between the two leads. It is a thorough-going disappointment, and a clear sign of the downturn in their careers.

This one is pure formula. If you like your crime stories dished up very simply and predictably, you may enjoy it.

It seemed to me that the biggest crime in the movie was committed by the script writer, who has taken a brilliant story concept (a chance photograph of a murder) and managed to strip it of all dramatic interest. There are no real surprises and no suspense to keep your interest. About the only positive things I could say are that the movie has accidentally done a fine job of recording English town and country scenes in the 1950s, and the musical score by Australian composer John Lanchbery is of some interest.

By contrast, just 12 years later Antonioni's classic movie `Blowup' (1966) took almost the same story concept and wove a web of suspense, mystery, fear, imagination, sexuality and keen social observation. I wonder if the writers of Blowup ever saw this sad little precursor. If they did draw inspiration from it, they would probably be the only people who ever did.

Oh and by the way, it's not giving too much away to say that the hero and heroine never get closer than bumping into each other by accident. Apparently only the baddies have sex. Curse that prudish decade of the 1950s!

That's one of the less interesting film from director John Gilling, the future British director of FURY AT SMUGGLER'S BAY, SHADOW OF THE CAT, PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, BANDIT OF ZHOBE, BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR and also many thrillers from the fifties such as THE CHALLENGE, MAN INSIDE or INTERPOL. This very movie is just bland, forgettable among the hundreds of other crime thrillers that the British film industry provided through for instance Butchers Film Company or even the Danzigers' during the late fifties and early sixties. Hundreds among which there also was some good stuff from time to time. This movie doesn't belong to such gems. It is not bad but just clumsy, flat, boring, predictable. For fans only of this kind of material.