Devil's Bait

I'm going on a 60 year old memory here, so bear with me! This was the B film that was the supporting feature in the UK next to Norman Wisdom's "The Square Peg", which is the only reason I happened to see it.

For a B movie to stick in your mind for 60 years, there has to have been something special about it. The plot is simple enough - the rat eliminator borrows an old, broken loaf pan to mix up his cyanide bait in a bakery, goes out to lunch planning to clean up his work tools when he gets back, and is involved in an accident that puts him in the hospital. In his absence, the baker runs out of loaf pans, and uses the cyanide laced broken pan. The rat catcher regains consciousness in the hospital, and goes into panic mode about the poisoned pan. The rest of the movie follows the attempts of the authorities to track down the poisoned loaf of bread, identifiable because the broken loaf tin makes it one of a handful of an unusual shape.

There are a number of candidates for the potential victim, and the suspense builds as we follow the purchasers of each deformed loaf to discover which one contains the fatal mixture.

The final dénoument is completely unexpected.

Too many dramatic movies rely on the scary music, the constantly repeated hidden menace, the shadowy glimpses of the unidentifiable villain to maintain the suspense. "Devil's Bait" carries you from fear to fear only because the scenario is so real. It could happen to you.

Why only 8 out of 10? Because I haven't seen it again since 1959 to know if it still has the same train-wreck power to simultaneously attract and repel.

Joe and Ellen Frisby have a small problem at their bakery, rats, and when they are unable to get hold of their usual pest controllers, they call on Mr Alfred Love for help, Mr Love has an unconventional method of dealing with the rats.

What an unusual, unconventional, but thoroughly enjoyable film this is. Probably a B Movie, so don't go expecting huge production values, but do expect a bit of drama, and a couple of laughs.

A plot you would think was overly frivolous, or perhaps better suited to Wallace and Gromit, but it really does work. Lots of unexpected moments, twists and turns, it's almost hard to classify it, as it really does cross a few genres.

I just loved the way the camera focused on the killer loaf. Who'd have thought bread could be so dangerous. I can only imagine the puns that have been associated with this film over the years.

Some very nice performances throughout, Keen, Hylton, Kelly, Jackson all were great.

9p for a loaf of bread, wow times have really changed, I think I paid £2.25 for a loaf about an hour ago, as for the cost of potassium cyanide, you can only imagine.

8/10.

Playing like a feature-length public information film about the correct handling of poisons. This early second feature from the producers who later brought us 'The 'Avengers', in addition to giving a rare big screen leading role to Geoffrey Keen, looks good and boasts a sardonic wit and an atmospheric score by the distinguished composer William Alwyn. Well worth catching.

Baker Geoffrey Keene has rats in his store room, and the municipal rat catchers are away on their honeymoon. He's recommended Dermot Kelly who, unknown to Keene or wife Jane Hylton, uses potassium cyanide; even worse, when he breaks the dish he was going to lay poisoned bread in, he uses a baking pan and forgets to wash it out before he goes to spend his money on a spree. As a result, there's a poisoned loaf of bread among the fresh-baked offerings the next morning.

It was a very pleasant mix of comedy and terror. Rat-catcher Kelly, is one of those twee little fellows, playing a practitioner of one of the more grisly professions as the most inoffensive of alcoholics, as one might expect an undertaker or hangman to be in a comedy.

Like my mother used to say, it's all fun and games until someone eats a lethal dose of potassium cyanide and dies in agony, and the film maintains that black comic tone until one of the gossiping women in the shop chooses the deadly loaf and there's a blare to warn the inattentive audience that it's no longer a joke.

Could it have been done better? Yes. Have the women come in a group, gossiping, gossiping; baker's wife Jane Hylton saying "Why don't you choose your own loaf," and we don't know if it's still there, like the bullet in a game of Russian Roulette, until they leave, and the empty spot is revealed.

I'm sure the film makers toyed with the idea of calling this DEVIL'S BREAD, decided it wouldn't fit, because that's specifically hemlock, and settled on the actual coy title. Still, despite a couple of small issues, there's a lot to admire in this tiny British second feature.

"Devil's Bait" (1959) is an exquisite little 56 minute British thriller derivative of Alfred Hitchcock in a striking way. It stars Geoffrey Keen, Jane Hylton, Gordon Jackson, and others, and though not humor by a long shot, nevertheless keeps its outer cover just shy of bumping up against a humor balloon here and there. It's slyly told, yet it's straight-in-your-face occurrences are genuinely scary. The bait is bait to catch rats - rats in a bakery - and there seem to be - many. Keen hires a man (Dermot Kelly, and named Love in the film) to come in to get rid of the rats. He comes, he baits the traps - however, he uses what he thinks is a badly damaged bread pan to mix his poison with the bait; the poison's cyanide... Well, he puts the pan back in a pile of other pans. The baker's wife comes in later and...yep, bakes a loaf of bread - with a tail in it because the bread leaks out the ripped metal part of the pan... Later, a lady comes in and buys it. Meanwhile, the owners discover the problem - and the tension's been building just like a Hitchcock thriller - and they try to find the lady. But, uh-huh, the lady's given the loaf to two other girls. Where are they????????!!!!!!!!

Remarkably good for a programmer. Recommended very highly. Why isn't this better known? Oh, by the way, Gordon Jackson plays a British cop. He's good, of course, as are all the others. This is on the new release, "Renown Crime Collection", volume 7. There are 3 DVDs and 12 films, from the 1930s-1960s.