Barbados Quest

"Murder on Approval" aka "Barbados Quest" from 1955 is evidently the second film about this character, Tom "Duke" Martin, a private investigator. In this one, Martin is hired by an American who believes that while in England, he paid $10,000 for an overprint of a Barbados stamp which he believes is fake. He wants his money back.

Martin flies to London and meets up with his Barney Wilson (Mark Balfour). Soon the two are up to their necks in fraud, murder, and robbery.

"Murder on Approval" doesn't have much of a budget, and Tom Conway in is a familiar Falcon/Saint type role -- a smooth, elegant ladies' man who gets in the way of a police investigation. Nothing new there. The attractive Delphi Lawrence plays the secretary of a wealthy woman who inherited a Barbados stamp.

Michael Balfour adds a little spice to the proceedings.

It's slow-moving and not very exciting.

Just okay.

In London, J. D. Everleigh purchases a rare stamp from Geoffrey Blake who claims to represent famous stamp trader Robert Coburn. He does bring along stamp expert Lord Valchrist to verify. Later, he finds the same stamp with his friend even though there should only be one available for sale. He starts to have doubts and hires private eye Tom Martin (Tom Conway) to investigate.

This is a British crime drama. It is very much the old style mystery detective. It may be an attempt to start a franchise. It is more a howcatchem since the bad guys are right there. I like the starting premise. It is all very average and not memorable.

This B-film from producers Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman is very much in the style of their later television success The Saint. Indeed, Tom Conway had played The Saint on American radio and was best known for The Falcon, an identical character, in a series of 1940s B-films he had inherited from his brother George Sanders, who had also donned the halo. Like those films, this British effort was distributed by RKO and sticks so closely to the formula that it is almost indistinguishable from a Falcon film, but with names changed and the setting switched to England, and the plot concerning stamps - forged, rare and stolen.

Conway is as good as ever as Tom 'Duke' Martin, with his Errol Flynn-like good looks and suave, twinkly-eyed demeanour - though, at 51, was beginning to show his age. As with the Falcon series, he has a stout, former crook for a comical sidekick, now played by reliable B-film regular Michael Balfour. Elsewhere, Brian Worth as Blake is conceited, vaguely sinister and reminiscent of a young Dennis Price, while John Horsley is excellent in another of his many detective portrayals.

However, while the counterfeit racket is a neat one and a car chase perks things up in the middle, the plot is somewhat convoluted and the viewer must keep track of which is the real stamp. The villain is more or less known from the outset and the interest comes from how Tom makes sense of it all, so there is little consistent suspense. I saw it twice before I understood everything, so can only imagine how cinema-goers felt on seeing it only once.

Such quibbles aside, this is a functional B-film and a must-see for fans of The Falcon. A sequel, Breakaway, was released the next year. Both films were a success, mostly due to the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedies they were paired with, and a television series was apparently even mooted, though did not materialise.

Special investigator Duke Martin is in London to investigate the authenticity of a rare postage stamp called the Barbados Overplate. Someone is willing to commit murder to get his or her hands on the stamp, which puts a crimp in Duke's efforts to romance every beautiful woman he meets

The smooth Tom Conway stars in this undemanding and easy-going the Saint-type of programmer that has some light fistfights, sleuthing and wooing the ladies- the type of film Conway could do in his sleep. Of course, he has aged a bit from the Falcon days, but he still got the charm. He's great fun to watch, and makes this film quite watchable.

BARBADOS QUEST is the first of two outings for Tom Conway's ageing private eye 'Duke' Martin, a guy who can never sit still but must go around solving crimes wherever he sees them. BREAKAWAY was the sequel which followed shortly although it's not as good as this movie. BARBADOS QUEST sounds like an interesting precursor to Bond, promising globetrotting and an exotic location, but unfortunately the Barbados of the title in reality refers to a rare stamp.

Yes, it's a crime film built around stamp collecting, and as genteel and sedate as it sounds despite a handful of fight scenes being shoehorned into the plot. The first half of this film has a genuine sense of mystery about it as the viewer isn't sure what's happened and isn't sure what's going on either. In the second half, the motivations of the entire cast are quite clear and things slow down considerably as a result with the sense of mystery lost.

Conway is an acceptable lead despite being too long in the tooth to successfully convince as the protagonist. Delphi Lawrence does a good job of playing the glamorous woman involved in the case, but the real scene stealer is Michael Balfour who excels in his 'comedy sidekick' role. The final mention goes to Brian Worth, who channels some of the spirit of a youthful Dennis Price as a mysterious figure involved in the proceedings. BARBADOS QUEST is no masterpiece, but for a film about stamp collecting it's surprisingly efficient.