The Broken Horseshoe

Surgeon Robert Beatty operates on Ferdy Mayne with a new drug. Maybe has been in a hit-and-run and is anxious to get out of hospital, so he leave earlier than Beatty would like, especially as alluring Elizabeth Sellars had come by when Mayne was unconscious and Beatty wants to see her again. Mayne makes an appointment for a follow-up and gives Beatty a letter to hold until he returns. When he doesn't return, Beatty goes to Mayne's apartment and finds Mayne's corpse. His brother-in-law, Peter Coke, is the cop investigating the murder. Beatty doesn't mention Miss Sellars.

It's a decent mystery, and I preen a bit in that I figured it out. It's also a fair movie with film noir tinges, and a first film role for Roger Delgado. I was annoyed by Wilfred Burns' lush and busy score. Burns was a favored composer for bits of stock music, but listening to the bits constantly was a slightly onerous. That said, it's another decent B movie for Nettleford.

THE BROKEN HORSESHOE is a low budget British thriller filmed at Nettlefold Studios and distributed by the reliable Butcher's Films. Unfortunately it's one of their lesser outings, a largely uninteresting mystery yarn which sees a hospital doctor become both a murder suspect and an amateur sleuth as he attempts to solve the mysterious death of one of his patients.

Unsurprisingly, this is a sluggish, talky affair, notable only for some of the performances of the supporting players. While the main actors are rather stiff, there's a stand-out turn from a debuting Roger Delgado playing a rather sinister character; you can see why Delgado became a familiar face on our screens in the years to come as his performance is assured and confident. There's even a role for Ferdy Mayne (THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KLLERS) playing the chap whose murder kickstarts the whole plot. But the storyline is distinctly average, the events of the plot feel rather quaint, and as a whole this hasn't dated as well as other material from the era.

It all looks very well and makes sense, and the lady in question is as beautiful as you could ever wish, but nothing is what it appears like. It's the ordinary skilful Durbridge touch of a clever thriller with a mystery dominating the plot, as two doctors get involved in a fearful business of murder, planted evidence, mysterious messages written on a mirror and deleted, invisible ink and so on, and all you know is that at least Robert Beatty must be innocent, which he always is but nevertheless always gets into trouble. The lady in question is the beautiful Elizabeth Sellars, whom it is also impossible to suspect of anything wicked with her irresistible Jacqueline Kennedy looks, while the gorgeous music of Wilfred Burns makes the whole set-up impeccably seductive, and like doctor Robert Beatty you are ready to believe anything. Fortunately he has a brother-in-law in the police who keeps his head sober and isn't easily fooled, not even by the beauty of women, so eventually the whole thing gets sorted out. But you never learn whether the other woman was murdered or not, but you could always hope that she survived, like doctor Robert Beatty did himself from the villain's knock-out drops.

Though the 1970s were the heyday for British TV spin-offs, author Francis Durbridge's serials, notable for each episode's cliffhanger ending, were among the first to transfer to the big screen twenty years earlier.

Here, Mark Fenton, a hospital doctor or possibly consultant as he is addressed as Mister, becomes ensnared with the double-dealing members of a crime ring after falling for the glamorous Della Freeman. Fenton appears to have more time on his hands than most members of his profession and he appeared in a similar adaptation OPERATION DIPLOMAT, played by Guy Rolfe. A likable cast includes Robert Beatty, with his decidedly Canadian accent as Fenton, while Elizabeth Sellars, an excellent and somewhat under used actress plays Della, looking classy and elegant in a sumptuous array of furs and hats. There's also two celebrated specialists in sinister foreigners for British films and TV, Ferdy Mayne and Roger Delgado.

The only film of Director Martyn C. Webster, a BBC radio producer whom had worked with Francis Durbridge on the Paul Temple series starring Peter Coke; he ensures it gets off to a flying start. Durbridge's thrillers and series were always gripping and enjoyable despite his over use of certain plot devices. See for example the similarities in a more polished adaptation of his work, Gerald Thomas's THE VICIOUS CIRCLE (1957), also featuring a doctor in trouble.

I enjoyed the acting performances of Elizabeth Sellars playing the alluring, sophisticated, femme fatale, Della Freeman as well as Roger Delgardo, who is cast as Felix Galegos, the slippery, dastardly villain, a role which he reprised in countless films. However, the rest of the cast are unremarkable and move around like mannequins to pad out the cast. Robert Beatty plays Roger Fenton, a chain smoking, naive and highly gullible doctor, who's drawn into a spider's web of intrigue involving the doping of horses. Fenton's fascination with the delightful Della Freeman, seriously affects his thinking with the result he puts himself in the frame as a murderer. Robert Beatty handles his role well as the spellbound doctor, but the storyline allows him and Sellars, little room for romance, not even a kiss or an embrace. Beatty was a trustworthy and solid regular of British films in the 40's and 50's who later appeared as a detective in the TV series, 'Dial 999.' 'The Broken Horseshoe' is a worthy, but cheaply made budget film, which doesn't inspire, as there is far too much talk and barely any action. One of those films to watch out of curiosity on a cold, wet afternoon.