Hidden Homicide

What would you do if you woke up in a strange house, not knowing how you got there, with a pistol in your hand and your cousin's body stuffed into a cupboard? If you're Griffith Jones, you talk Patricia Laffan, who knocks on your door, and your reporter friend, Bruce Seton, into helping you hunt for the killer without informing the authorities. They get wind of it soon enough anyway, when Charles Farrell, the antiques restorer and forger across the way also turns up dead.

It's a decently directed and telegraphically plotted murder mystery directed by Terrence Young. It's an efficiently produced second feature, with everyone running around London and the exurban areas, with a nice twist ending, and decent actors. Even so, it works out to be little more than a decent time-waster, although cinematographer Ernest Palmer -- the British one, just as it's the British Farrell in the cast -- gets some good night shooting at the end. It was the end of Palmer's career; he would light one more movie (the appropriately named THE CROWNING TOUCH) and retire. He died in 1964, age 63.

A novelist, Michael Cornforth (Griffin Jones) goes to bed in London and wakes up with a gun in his hand in his cousin's country cottage. Walking around, he finds his cousin in a kitchen closet.

Two women appear at the door, soaked from the rain, asking to come in. One of the women goes into the kitchen for tea and drops something on the floor. Looking for a broom, she finds the body, screams, and faints.

Michael attempts to explain the situation to Jean Gilson (Patricia Laffan). For some reason, she believes him. This is a major hole in the story - there is no explanation for her behavior.

Michael's investigation, with the help of Jean and a friend, reporter Bill Dodd (Bruce Seton), puts him on the trail of his cousin's wife, who supposedly is in Australia. Since Michael is in line to inherit, and since someone is trying to frame him, this is perhaps about money.

These B noirs were part of a quota system in British film. It's not bad; in fact, there are some fun scenes. There's a neat twist, actually a double twist, at the end.

Hidden Homicide is directed by Tony Young and adapted to screenplay by Young and Bill Luckwell from the novel "Murder at Shinglestrand" written by Paul Capon. It stars Griffith Jones, James Kenney and Patricia Laffan. Music is by Otto Ferrari and cinematography by Ernest Palmer.

A novelist wakes up to find a gun in his hand a relative murdered nearby. Did he do it?

Who cares is the serious answer after sitting through this most turgid of "Z" grade Brit crime mysteries. There's just about enough material here to have made a half hour episode of some low rent Private Investigator show, but even then the logic holes and crumbling direction would struggle to hold the attention of the intelligent of mind. Also features one of the most irritating musical scores of the 50s (shudder). 2/10

Confessing immediately that I have never heard of Director Anthony Young, I have to admit that HIDDEN HOMICIDE has left me rather underwhelmed.

The best things about this B noir are: pretty, elegant, leggy Patricia Laffan; the lovely cars of the 1950s, including the shrill police vehicles; Charles Farrell as the slippery Mungo Peddy, unfortunately in a very small part; and the sudden emergence of the villain, concealed from sight for most of the film's 68'.

Griffith Jones never rises above the mediocrity of his role (he does not even convey any witty or sharp one-liners that reflect some intelligence), and his running is too slow to elude police cars, forcing the viewer to suspend his disbelief to considerable extents.

James Kenney steals the show as knife thrower and impersonator but it is Laffan's breath-taking beauty and willingness to trust the male despite appearances that I take away from this noir.

The script suffers from serious and illogical holes: it is difficult to see how the murderer could impersonate the first deceased's wife for four years, and the rescue of Laffan at the end shows what appear to be some scenes in daylight and others at night.

The soundtrack does not help, either. Some wonky drumming, like a poor recording, persists even during the car chases, and I found it unnerving.

Thankfully, it's all done in 68'', and, as indicated above, the big plus is that you get to see some truly wonderful cars.

After opening titles of sinister hypnotic music and swirling water, we're in a London apartment where Michael Cornforth, a writer, (Griffiths Jones) is making ready for bed. The next morning when he awakes he's not only fully dressed and in a completely different place in the sticks – he's also holding a gun! After a bewildered nosey round the gaff, this being a black and white second feature, he of course finds a dead body - in the kitchen. Two Rank charm school types, Jean (played by Patricia Laffan) a bossy nosey parker type certainly, a lesbian possibly – and Marian, a beautiful trance like possibly drug addicted living doll – call round on, of all things, a walking holiday. They're soaked to the skin (it is, after all ,raining) and seeking shelter. This being Britain in the 1950, Cornforth can't tell them to do one so he only goes and lets them in doesn't he. After lots of farcical trying to keep them out of the kitchen stuff while not appearing to be totally odd - and Jean informing Cornforth that her friend is "very nervy and imaginative – always expecting to find bodies under the bed" - Marian upsets the Saxa salt and one textbook scream later discovers the corpse. Not unnaturally the two girls try and bail out. Cornforth prevents this at gunpoint – and then things begin to get really silly. He wants to talk to Jean who then simply goes off with him for a nice chat while leaving Marian in the bedroom without explanation like a naughty child. Cornforth says he can prove he was in London last night as his neighbour Mungo Jerry – or Peddy – saw him. Jean then goes from "You murdered him (not Mungo) didn't you?" to "I can take care of Marian. No one believes her anyway" in the blink of an eye. Why I'm not sure. It can't be Cornforth's charisma. Later on Jean informs Cornforth that she's had Marian sent to hospital. "They've got her under heavy sedation. She'll be out for 24 hours." With friends like that?

All in all Hidden Homicide – in terms of characterisation, plotting and probability - charters new waters of terribleness even by the standards of the British black and white 1950s B movie.