A Stranger in Town

The directorial debut of George Pollock, who later made several more films about violent death in placid surroundings; but here the tone is much darker than in his Miss Marple mysteries and we get Chopin on the soundtrack rather than Ron Godwin's jaunty theme.

Mona Washbourne would have made a splendid Miss Marple, but instead of an eccentric old spinster stepping on the toes of the local constabulary the amateur sleuth is this time played by crew-cut yank Alex Nicol (who gets as warm a welcome from the locals as Spencer Tracy got in 'Bad Day at Black Rock'); although there are quite a few engaging performances by the other women in the cast (of whom I would like to have seen more of Mary Laura Wood & Betty Impey).

Alex Nicol plays the American journalist who gets caught up in a tale of intrigue and murder while gathering up the private possessions of a former friend who allegedly had committed suicide. What seems to be a promising film, fails to deliver. Slow tempo, weak storyline and a conspicuous lack of tension and energy, quickly had me yawning. I was longing for some action, and some emotionally charged scenes but it was all in vain. The director offers no gripping moments of suspense or sudden or twists and turns - instead the audience are left with our American hero simply wandering through the village looking for clues but ends up meeting no more than a collection of unremarkable, staid and starchy, one dimensional village characters. The main reason why the storyline is so unconvincing is that everyone is too nice, polite and well mannered! None of the characters reveal any menace. I was longing for an angry Dan Duryea to show up and play the bad guy. He would have injected much needed energy and gritty cynicism into the film, but sadly we are left with Colin Tapley, playing the toff, who comes across as a merely bitter and sad character. As for the love interest of Alex Nicol, Anne Paige, sounds bored and detached from what's going on. Her character has no 'edginess' or 'attitude.' Indeed, after watching this film, instead of watching a crime drama, I felt I was watching middle class life village life in the 1950's. I would give this film a miss.

A straightforward murder mystery set in and around a sleepy English village, A STRANGER IN TOWN features imported American star Alex Nicol (who is much better than he was in THE GILDED CAGE) as a guy who shows up in the UK after his good friend, a composer, commits suicide. He's only there to gather a few belongings to return to the States but a mysterious note warning him of intrigue leads him to stay on and investigate the apparent suicide himself.

What follows is the uncovering of a hotbed of conspiracy and murder, with various characters hiding their true motivations. I quite like these gentleman detective films such as this and A STRANGER IN TOWN has a fairly good plot, although it lacks excitement and it cheats a bit by not allowing the viewer to work out the murderer's identity until the climax. Nicol's encounters with a volatile farmer are my favourite moments here.

The supporting cast is a solid one that includes Colin Tapley as a toff, Anne Paige as a would-be love interest, and Charles Lloyd Pack as a former army man. John Horsley is the usual dogged cop who adds little to the narrative other than to pad out the running time. Harry Towb and Arthur Lowe have bit parts.

An American composer living in a small English town commits suicide.... apparently. A month later, Alex Nicol shows up. He's a friend of the dead man's uncle, here to find out what happened, take a picture of the grave, that sort of thing. People are generally helpful, except for the local drunk, who picks a fight. He's about to leave, when something changes his mind. The locals realize he suspects murder, and they close ranks against him.

It's a nice atmospheric movie most of the way through, although the ending seems pretty random. There are a couple of nice performances: Mona Washbourne is a lot of fun as the local spinster who writes poetry and brew parsnip wine; Hal Osmond has a fine small role as a bored bar man who chats with Nicol and expresses regret at not having said something that might have prevented the presumed suicide. It's a decent first directorial effort by George Pollock, who had spent 20 years as an Assistant Director, including working for David Lean in the mid-1940s and as Second Unit Director of THE THIRD MAN. Pollock would direct for about ten years; his best remembered stuff was the Margaret Rutherford "Miss Marple" comedy-mysteries. He would work with Kubrick on special effects for 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and die in 1979, aged 72.

An eccentric, anti-social American composer/pianist living in a small British town commits suicide...or does he? An American reporter on holiday in the UK who is from the composer's hometown agrees to bring some of his personal things back to the family in the US and to meet some of the composer's friends while in England. As he asks around, something doesn't seem right, and the mystery begins. The British have always been able to make excellent low-budget murder mysteries, and this one is yet another little-known gem. The supporting cast were unfamiliar to me, but all were convincing as the small-town folks who had some kind of dealings with the late composer. Alex Nicol, who did a lot of acting work in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, is a somewhat laid-back leading man, but that fits well here (actually, his performance reminds me a bit of John Agar). The resolution is somewhat unexpected but all the clues were there in hindsight, and I plan to watch the film a second time soon to see how the mystery is constructed and the clues are placed. If you like "B" murder mysteries, especially British ones, check this out.