Portrait of Alison

This is a typical Durbridge thriller with a labyrinthine plot which is filled with bodies and a whole shoal of red herrings.A good cast of reliable character actors.

Robert Beatty is an artist who learns that his brother has been killed in a Italian car accident. As you'd expect, that's just the start of it - the mystery revolves around a postcard featuring a glass of Chianti being held in a woman's hand... Who has it? What does it mean? Is it a clue to the mysterious death? This is a far more layered thriller than you'd expect - the performances are taut and the dialogue less meandering than in many other UK-made dramas of the time. Geoffrey Keen is good as the sceptical police inspector and although you do get the gist well before the end, it's still quite a suspensefully directed (by Guy Green) 80 minutes.

With its distant echoes of Laura, Postmark for Danger (a.k.a. Portrait of Alison) survives as one of the few English crime dramas of the post-war period with some of the grit and menace of American film noir. (Americans, plus one Canadian, make up the principal cast. But the film betrays its British provenance with its assumption of the utter incorruptibility of the London police - a notion that wouldn't pass muster on the west side of the Atlantic - as well as with its the-butler-did-it resolution.)

Robert Beatty, a commercial artist, hears some bad news from his pilot-for-hire brother (William Sylvester): a third brother has died in a fiery car crash in Italy, along with a young actress he had met. Then strange things begin to happen: The police grow interested in a postcard his dead brother may have sent him, as do elements of the underworld; and the father of the actress commissions him to paint a portrait, working from a photograph, of his daughter. Next, he returns to find the portrait vandalized, the photograph missing, and his favorite model dead in his bedroom, wearing the gown in the painting. He becomes the prime suspect in the murder when no evidence can be found to support his wild claims - until the supposedly dead actress (Terry Moore) shows up at his door.

At the end of the day, Postmark for Danger settles down into a tidy police procedural about a ring of diamond smugglers. But for much of its course it unfurls in a tantalizing mist of eerie and unlikely coincidences, many of them centering on the word `nightingale.' Credit should probably go to director Guy Green, who started out as a cinematographer (he shot David Lean's Great Expectations). It's an enjoyable if minor entry, albeit one with just a little bit extra.

This UK film from 1955 opens with a car racing along the road, over the cliff it goes, and bursts into flames when it hits the canyon below. Geoffrey Keen is Inspector Cobly, who is investigating the accident. We are introduced to Tim and Dave, the brothers of the deceased driver. You'll recognize "Henry" (Allan Cuthbertson) from Fawlty Towers, and whole lot of British TV. I see Hopscotch (AWESOME film) in Cuthberson's list of roles, but can't remember what he did in it. Tim (Robert Beatty) also starts checking out what's going on, and he bumps into people who have the answers, but don't want to give them up. Terry Moore stars as Alison, and seems to be at the center of all this grand adventure. Pretty entertaining. I've never seen this one before, and as of today, doesn't have any comments on the discussion board. Must be new to Turner Classics. There is a twist here and there, but nothing earth shattering. Story by Francis Durbridge, who wrote this in between all the (British) TV series for which he was known. Directed by Guy Green, who had received an Oscar for directing the 1948 Great Expectations.

This British film from 1955 stars Robert Beatty, Terry Moore, and William Sylvester.

Commercial artist Tim Forrester (Beatty) is visited by his brother (Sylvester) and learns that a third brother was killed in a car accident in Italy. A young actress, Alison Ford, was with him and she, too, died.

The police seem to be looking for a postcard they believe the dead brother sent to Tim - a drawing of a chianti bottle with a woman's hand holding it, but Tim doesn't have it.

The father of the dead Alison commissions him to paint her portrait and gives Tim a photo of her and the dress she wore in the photo. When he returns home one night, the painting has been ruined and one of his models (Josephine Griffin) is dead in the bedroom, wearing the dress from the portrait. He now is a suspect in her murder. Then Alison Ford shows up, not dead at all.

The premise is Laura-esque as far as the portrait and the dead woman not being dead, but the similarity ends there. The plot concerns international smuggling, and the postcard is very important as police search for the mysterious head of the ring, Nightingale.

The cast has British, Canadian, and American actors in it. It's a bit strange because one of the brothers has a British accent and the other doesn't. Terry Moore is very young and pretty here, and the overall acting is good.

Though this is a British film, the outside influences make it seem more American than most of these movies.