L'homme au masque de verre

Although the police have termed her mother's death by gas a suicide, a teenage girl (Mandy Miller) believes her step-father (Peter VanEyck) murdered her.

Hammer may be best known for their horror films, but they made some pretty fine thrillers and murder mysteries, too, as this film attests. Helmed by Guy Green (who made his name under David Lean) and written by Hammer's Jimmy Sangster, this is just pure genius beginning to end.

From the opening scene, we know how the killer does his work... but then we watch and see if his teenage stepdaughter can find out. Blaming someone for murder is one thing, but finding solid proof is something else entirely.

Minor but entertaining Hammer thriller, not quite reaching the heights of other entries in their "psychological thrillers" ouevre, but still effective.

The film starts right off with it's main murderer on screen committing his evil deed, clearly establishing his (and the film's) gimmick of the snorkel used as an accessory to murder. So from the very beginning we know this is not going to be a whodunnit. What we have here instead here is a "who will find out" plot.

Once the opening credits have finished, the main plot of the film starts with the daughter of the murder victim feeling almost positive that she knows who is responsible for the deed but at the same time, unable to prove it, as nobody has been able to work out how the act was committed, and therefore the killer has got away with it. The more agitated the daughter becomes, the more the killer starts to see her as a threat to his freedom, and so a cat and mouse game starts to build as both try to outwit each other.

This sounds complicated, and it is, but the roles in the film are quite well defined. The killer is a creepy but charismatic older man, able to convince everyone that he is actually mourning his dead wife, and the "suspector" is a teenage girl who everyone thinks is just over imaginative. I could almost imagine William Castle making this film! The acting is very good, and it's all very British and proper. There are plot twists and the climax is clever and worth waiting for, although as a whole the film has dated somewhat. Quite hard to see now, seemingly only available on the Sony 6 film box set DVD "Icons of Suspense", which is worth a purchase due to it having 5 other hard to see Hammer thrillers. So "The Snorkel" gets a thumbs up from me.

Set in Italy in an ornate villa, you see the crime from the beginning, and how it is pulled off in detail. An apparently fortune hunting husband, Paul Decker (Peter van Eyck), has put a powerful sedative in his wealthy wife's drink causing her to fall into a deep sleep, has taped up the windows, locked the doors to the room she is in, and turns on the gas in the room. He dons a snorkel connected to air coming from outside and stays in the room until the next morning when the servants arrive. He then hides in a section under the floor, with the opening to this compartment hidden by a throw rug. The servants find their dead mistress, call the police, and the woman's death is ruled a suicide. The murdering husband slips out and leaves after everybody has left the villa.

The dead woman's daughter, Candy, about 13, is not buying it. She says she saw the man kill her father - his death was ruled an accident - and says that her mother had no reason to kill herself, especially on the day she was returning home from boarding school. But nobody believes her and her stepfather has a passport stamped by the Italian authorities saying he came back to Italy from France the day after his wife died.

So the rest of the film is a tense cat and mouse game between Candy and her stepfather, with her trying to figure out how he did what he did, and with nobody believing her, and her stepdad doing a good job of playing the grieving husband. He charms the close family friend caring for Candy, and the police seem determined to close the case and call this a suicide because, after all, for the husband to have done it he would have had to be in the locked room the entire time that the gas was on AND live. Of course, the answer is in the movie title, and somehow I think Columbo would have had a harder look at the stepfather than the police did here. In fact, this is set up very much like an episode of Columbo - you see the crime, you see the criminal, but Columbo has to prove what he suspects going initially only on a hunch.

There is a terrific twist at the end and is well worth sticking around to see. Let's just say the ending is heavy.

This is another of the underrated and seldom seen suspense films that Hammer put out in the late 1950's, early 60's. It has sort of a Columbo flavor to it as we see the sinister Van Eyck very creatively murdering his wife in the opening scenes and spending the rest of the film attempting to convince a suspicious niece that he is innocent. It is a very atmospheric black and white film, a media which should be taken advantage of more even today as a tool to establish mood. Van Eyck is superb as the villain and the supporting cast is first rate. The Snorkel is not really a classic but is solid and holds up fairly well after almost half a century. Catch this one on cable or video when you can, you won't be disappointed.

Poor Candy Brown (Mandy Miller). She cannot get anybody to believe her. She's 100% certain that her cold blooded stepfather Paul Decker (Peter van Eyck) has murdered her mother, despite the evidence seeming to indicate that the woman committed suicide. Mandy, who also believes in her heart that Paul had similarly murdered her father once upon a time, sticks to her guns. But the adults around her keep stubbornly insisting that she *must* be making all of this up.

It's easy to be on Candy's side here. With so many thick headed adult characters, you truly feel her frustration and desperation. Will she ever obtain the proof she needs that Paul is a creep? People like her chaperone Jean Edwards (Betta St. John, "The City of the Dead"), Mr. Wilson (William Franklyn), or the hearty police inspector (Gregoire Aslan) refuse to take her seriously, even though she doesn't seem to be the sort of girl who'd be prone to flights of fancy.

The suspense lies not in a "did he or didn't he" scenario - we see Paul murder Candy's mother in the quiet, ingenious opening set piece. The title object plays a pivotal role. Rather, the tension arises in Candy's predicament, and whether or not she'll be vindicated before the evil Paul strikes again. And we know it's possible. The looks he keeps giving her show that he thinks that he'll have to kill her just to shut her up.

Efficient direction by Oscar winning cinematographer Guy Green ("Great Expectations", 1946) and sharp black & white photography make this a fine entertainment, as well as strong performances from all concerned. Miller makes Candy a sympathetic character, and with his facial features van Eyck was obviously a natural for screen villainy.

This viewer would suggest that fans of Hammer horror give features like this a try, just to show that the famed British studio wasn't just a one trick pony.

Seven out of 10.