Marilyn

... And you shouldn't have bothered answering. Unoriginal and uninspired rip off of the John Garfield-Lana Turner classic.

Wolf Rilla made an extraordinary directorial debut with this nihilistic piece of low life which most commentators have compared to 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' but actually more resembles 'Ossessione'.

Leslie Dwyer is meaner and more dictatorial than the husband usually is, Sandra Dorne just a spoilt child with terrible taste in men; and no prizes for guessing which side Vida Hope bats for.

This low budget British film is a version of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, about adultery, passion, a love triangle, and murder, all set around that most British of locations, an independent garage. An interesting cast go through the motions here although it's fair to say that the constraints of the budget mean that the film never really excites or innovates and instead sort of just plods along.

It doesn't help that we've seen this age-old story play out time and again. Maxwell Reed (BLACKOUT) is the heartthrob hero, a drifter who finds employment at the hands of a bad-tempered mechanic (Leslie Dwyer, great but underutilised in a character role). He soon falls for the comely charms of Dwyer's wife, Sandra Dorne, who is a Diana Dors-alike and not a bad actress at all. You can guess the rest of the story, but fun is added from Ferdy Mayne's stalwart suitor and the chance to see Kenneth Connor in a bit part. Although MARILYN is entirely devoid of originality, it's a relatively watchable little piece with plenty of character work going on.

I saw this today Monday 20/8/18 on "Talking Pictures" channel 81 for the first time.Elements of the captioned well known films were used in its plot line and.In place of John Garfield we have Maxwell Reed giving his eyebrowns another workout.In place of June Anderson (Mrs Danvers) from Rebecca we have the character of Rosie, with lesbian longings for Sandra Dorn which of course could not be shown on screen in 1953 only suggested.The points made by other reviewers were valid but the final scene of police cars drawing up to a stop at the petrol station indicated the producers were short of the funds to finish the film and /or didn't know how to give it a satisfactory ending.This may account for its mediocre rating by reviewers just over 5 whereas I awarded it 6.

Recently shown in all its sleazy glory on BBC 's British B season, this leans heavily on the Hollywood classic THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE - indeed Sandra Dore's character would aspire to the glamour of a Lana Turner. It follows the template of the hot sexy young wife using her hunky but dumb young stud to eliminate her inconvenient older husband but adds a few ingredients of its own. Marilyn tends be too whiny to be sympathetic and Maxwell Reed (a pin-up of his day) manages to convey the fall-guy mechanic's infatuation and confusion as his lover increasingly takes him for granted. The film throws in the added complication of the character of Rose who nurtures unrequited lesbian feelings for Marilyn but the actress's reading of her lines is monotonous and unfeeling - trying to be downtrodden, she merely comes across as vacuous and a bad actress. An unrecognisably young Ferdy Mayne crops up as a sleazy, flashy hustler who woos Marilyn with promises of the high life but skedaddles when she grows too serious. Best actor is Leslie Dwyer = Mr Partridge himself - as the cuckolded hubbie who comes to a predictable end. British B films ended to reflect the seedy down-at-heels side of England - mostly because they couldn't afford to gloss things up. In a way, they paved the way for the kitchen sink films of the late 5's- early 60's. However, they lacked actors who looked the part like Albert Finney and Tom Courtney. They had to settle for Maxwell Reed. Dwyer looks the part and inhabits his character more convincingly than the others.