The Lost Hours

A well-produced Tempean amnesia yarn with their first imported American in the lead, vivid London locations with the roads remarkably free of traffic, two sturdy female leads and plenty of familiar faces (including three - Thora Hird, Ballard Berkley and John Horsley - later popular on TV in comedy roles).

The scene with the drinks is obviously lifted from 'D.O.A.', although fortunately for leading man Mark Stevens here it's simply been spiked with a mickey finn rather than radium.

Having a booze-up with a bunch of his old fly-buddies, former Royal Air Force pilot Mark Stevens, an American, gets into an altercation with one of them who goes out of his way to be insulting. They patch things up, and get on with their drinking. Next morning (or rather afternoon), Stevens wakes up in a strange hotel room only to read the headlines that the other guy has been murdered. But he can't remember a thing, having been slipped a Mickey the night before.

This is Cornell Woolrich territory, though he didn't have a thing to do with it. With Scotland Yard on his tail, Stevens races against time to retrace his vanished footsteps and find the real killer. Staunchly by his side is a fiancée Jean Kent; her opposite number is temptress Dianne Foster, available wife of another of the carousers. In his investigations, Stevens finds that some of the wartime heroes have, in the post-war years, taken to less heroic pursuits, running a phony import-export racket his inopportune sleuthing threatens to expose....

The Lost Hours (a.k.a. The Big Frame) is little more than a British crime programmer, but it's briskly done and keeps you awake. And despite the London landscape and the recurrent `I say, see here, old boy's that strew the dialog, its themes and story line place it neatly in `The American Style' of film noir.

The only interest for this film is that it may help you to waste your time for one hour, that's all. This is a British thriller from the fifties and a movie that wishes to look like an American one, and not only because of the main actor Mark Stevens, whom I have seen more inspired. Here, the scheme is old fashioned, boring, predictable, useless: a man accused of a murder he did not commit, and who tries to prove his innocence. I tried to watch it but it was very hard for me. David Mc Donald was also more inspired with adventures yarns or his CHRISTOPHER COLOMBUS. So forget this one, it is really a waste of time, despite the short length.

This is a B film from England. I have to say, I wasn't crazy about it.

The film stars Mark Stevens, Dianne Foster, Jean Kent, Garry Marsh, and John Bentley.

A WWII RAF unit gathers in London for a reunion. One of the men is an American pilot, Paul Smith (Stevens) who is engaged to Louise (Kent). During the reunion, a drunken colleague picks a fight with Paul, and the two of them wind up duking it out.

The two manage to make up and have another drink. That's all Paul remembers. The next day he wakes up in a strange hotel room and remembers nothing. Then he learns his colleague from the night before is dead. He becomes an immediate suspect.

Paul decides it's a better idea to clear his name, so he makes a run for it. With the help of Louise and a friend, he sets out to find out who framed him.

Very routine, didn't really hold my attention.

Mark Stephens and Jean Kent - can't be bad? The story is OK, but the dialogue is uninspired. Jean Kent is saddled with frumpy outfits and appalling hats, and confines herself to one-note rendition of her posh persona.

Dianne Foster is more colourful as a femme fatale. She wears the trampy, not frumpy, version of 50s fashion - tight black top and gilt jewellery. Every time someone comes into the office she pours them a sherry - and another for herself. She thinks she's earned a kiss from Mark Stephens by giving him some information, moves closer, raises her face and looks at him meaningfully. He tells her to close her eyes... and exits swiftly, leaving her baffled. But it's an instructive lesson in body language.