Hammer the Toff

John Bentley is the Toff, an aristocratic private eye -- he goes by "the Honorable Richard Rollinson" who encounter Patricia Dainton at a fancy hotel. She has just received a greeting card from her late uncle. Meanwhile, a criminal who is called the Hammer wants her uncle's formula for a metal; it's the usual scientific bafflegab used by writers in search of a Maguffin. The police are tracking down the Hammer, because he has just committed a murder. Previously he had used the same hammer for smash and grab jobs, which he then distributed among the poor of London's East End.

It's based on one of more than five hundred novels by John Creasey, and the director is quota quicky specialist Maclean Rogers. Shot at Nettleford Studio -- I noticed several sets from the Alastair Sim SCROOGE -- it's an efficiently directed second feature that tries to play off Bentley's and Miss Dainton's appearances in the "Temple Drake" mysteries.

It's a far more nuanced view of the police and their relationship with ordinary people than one usually gets from the movies. Certainly the people of the East End in this movie don't look on the coppers as their friends. Other than that, it's another of the approximately ten thousand mysteries the movies offered their audiences; and a fairly run mystery at that.

The Toff is a Saint knockoff. Hammer the Toff is cheap B movie that looks more like a quota quickie but with better production values.

Richard Rollison is the Toff. An aristocratic and well connected amateur crime fighter. He is friends with Inspector Grice (Valentine Dyall) and East End pub owner Bert Ebbut who has links with the criminal side of life.

Rollison has a calling card of the Toff. A caricature of a man in top hat, monocle, and smoking a cigarette in a holder.

In this movie Rollison meets Susan Lancaster in a train compartment and soon her uncle, a scientist is found dead. The culprit is a character called the Hammer.

Rollison tracks down the Hammer but discovers this is a Robin Hood type person and could not had killed Susan's uncle.

Maybe someone has taken the Hammer's identity or just trying to blame him.

An unpretentious and simple plot. This is a no frills and no fuss movie. The music is irritating, the story is creaky with not much action.

There is an appearance by Charles Hawtrey.

A Toffee-nosed rich, upper class person, is a sleuth & becomes a self-professed detective. This is a little better than its predecessor 'Salute The Toff', with a less complex plot.

This adaptation of the book by John Creasey (who wrote 600+ novels) is very faithful to the original. While there is certainly something very Saintesque in the Toff, Creasey makes the character his own, lifting the Robin Hood motif a notch above the others popular in that era.

I am pleased whenever a "lost" film is found.Mind you the BFIs definition of lost often means they don't happen to have a copy.Also it has to be borne in mind that just because a film is lost doesn't mean that it is going to be a rare masterpiece.This film is no more than a mundane B thriller.The tiff is clearly a copy of the Saint,but without the class.The plot of this film revolves around a criminal boss called continuously "the hammer".He is actually a robin hood character as Sally Patch vouchsafes.However it would appear that he is now committing nasty crimes such as murder and blackmail.Clearly he is innocent as John Bentley eventually provides.Now let's hope more lost films come to light.