Testigo presencial

Poor old "Molly" (Natasha Parry) has the misfortune to witness the eponymous character commit double murder. He knows she knows, and she knows he knows that she does, and so now he (Maxwell Reed) is determined to shut her up before she can tell pursuing police inspector "Vine" (Edward Underdown) and he faces the gallows. There's no real jeopardy here - we all know who did what to whom, but it's still quite an engaging little cat and mouse thriller that, though it could certainly do with losing twenty minutes or so, has a strong supporting cast and some nice photography of England's Sussex coast as the adventure hots up to an exciting, if predictable, denouement. The acting and script are all pretty generic, but it's still worth a watch.

Actress Natasha Parry is bicycling on the road when she hears a couple of shots, and sees a dark man emerge from the woods to stand by a standing auto. She thinks nothing of it, but in the dressing room that night, her fellow actress tells her the police are looking for witnesses. Miss Parry says she saw nothing useful, but her friend points out that it's always useful for an actress to get her name in the papers. Miss Parry reports the very little she knows to the police, and thinks that will be the end of it... until Superintendent of Police William Hartnell sees the item. With the unknown man having committed two murders, he thinks she's in for it, so he sends down Detective Inspector Edward Underdown to guard her, and possibly catch the dark man before he can kill her.

It's a handsomely shot movie, directed and written by Jeffrey Dell, with an intelligently plausible arc of action that ends in a chase across the seashore in the darkling. It's photographed in long takes by Eric Cross; the lengthening shadows convert a taut policier into a shadowy noir at the end.

I wanted to see 'The Dark Man'for a while mainly because of Maxwell Reed; i seem lately to have watched him in a few of his 'Clouded Yellow'/'Night Beat'/'Dear Murderer'/'Square Ring'. I got a copy of Dark Man off ebay finally.It is a short 'B' film, however it is well done for its style, punchy and effective. Unfortunately, i think the shortened US version is the one doing the rounds, not the longer UK version.I'd be interested in seeing the original longer release. A very young Natasha Parry is the leading lady and does the job very nicely, though the age difference between her and Edward Underdown is a bit too great for easy belief. Maxwell Reed is the title's otherwise unnamed 'Dark Man' and he fits the role well both in his looks and behaviour. He brings an edgy presence to the film, the dark side of Underdown's whiter than white policeman. The 2 men have a passing physical resemblance as well. There is interesting location filming down on the coast and a very unusual finale on the shooting range. The way Maxwell Reed stalks Natasha Parry, building her fear, is effective and realistic; a simple beach scene has dark undertones. The director also writer Jeffrey Dell didn't helm many projects, a pity based on this effort.

A terrific British B movie of the period! One of the filming locations listed is Camber Sands, but the denouement takes place at Dungeness where the Lighthouse and the Railway Station of the Hythe/Romney and Dymchurch Narrow Gauge Railway feature strongly - the line swings around the Dungeness terminus and can be seen quite clearly.

A frequently incoherent but extremely well photographed drama in which tall dark Maxwell Reed, having demonstrated how ruthless a killer he is despatching his first two victims then makes a complete pig's ear of silencing Natasha Parry, who happened to be cycling past just after the second murder.

Many of the plot contrivances (including a very perfunctorily engineered romance between Miss Parry and the rather elderly looking detective played by Edward Underdown) and character vignettes by the likes of Barbara Murray and William Hartnell seem thrown in just as filler between cameraman Eric Cross's vivid noirish night scenes and enterprising use of the South Coast in bright sunshine to surprisingly sinister effect that anticipates 'And Soon the Darkness' nearly twenty years later.