Stormy Crossing

A lightweight and weak story line, cliched dialogue, and then combine it with mediocre acting from the two female stars, makes this a tedious and underwhelming film drama that never gets out of second gear! The other problem is that too many of the characters are one dimensional and so it fails to attract the interest of the audience. John Ireland, the usual tough film guy, was badly miscast, playing a very unconvincing swimming coach. The villain of the piece, Derek Bond, plays the usual, middle class smarmy cad type, leading a double life, but all too predictably gets his come uppance. Joy Webster, who plays Kitty, shows little emotion throughout the film, never really engaging with the role of the mistress in a marriage triangle. She looks great in a swimsuit but her wooden acting crushes any potential interest in the story. This was a very disappointing film, perhaps watched simply for views of Dover in the 1950's and ladies swimwear! I can't recommend this film.

Danny Parker is set to swim The English channel, but he's distracted by a beautiful young woman, who's also there to complete the swim, tragedy strikes, and she drowns, Danny is convinced she was murdered.

As a whodunnit, it doesn't offer up anything really, as we see the incident, it would have worked better had they omitted that scene.

So it's more in the mystery thriller genre, on the plus side, the visuals are striking, it looks and feels very authentic, and The Dover setting works incredibly well, on the debit side, I found the story a little weak, there's nothing original, the film doesn't cover any new ground.

Best scene, Baker's Garage, look out for Arthur Lowe (of Dad's Army fame,) and John Schlesinger. John Horsley and John Ireland were pretty good. Joy Webster and Sheldon Lawrence are pretty convincing, and add a bit of glamour.

It's a competent movie, 6/10.

Sheldon Lawrence is in England to swim the Channel under the coaching of his brother, John Ireland. Joy Webster is also planning to do the swim, and they develop a friendship. Any deeper feelings are forestalled when Miss Webster tells Lawrence she is to be married to someone as soon as he gets a divorce. When they set off for their swims, a fog comes up and Miss Webster drowns. Lawrence, however, thinks it's murder.

It's nicely performed under the direction of C. M. Pennington-Richards, with DP Geoffrey Faithfull offering some nicely lit compositions. Alas, I didn't find the mystery aspect of it challenging, but a good cast includes Derek Bond, Leslie Dwyer, Maureen Connell, John Horsely, John Schlesinger, and swimmer Sam Rockett as himself.

I assume this was one of those B movies made then.Usually shown in a double bill in the cinemas.I couldn't really call this a murder mystery as you see who the killer is from their first murder.As often happens in this type of thing the smaller parts are more interesting than the main leads.Leslie Dwyer is interesting here in a small role and nice to see Arthur Lowe in a small part years before Dad's Army.

The film is of no interest as a who dunnit (as a child of five could guess who diddit) but for the fact that one quick scene in a garage has the most extraordinary cast. The dialogue is between John Ireland (archetypical Hollywood beefcake); Arthur Lowe (one of Britain's greatest comic actors); and John Schlesinger (one of Britain's greatest movie directors).