The Straw Man

Not a bad british thriller that grabs you for more than one hour but that eventually fails in the end; at least for my taste. I expected something different, because it is a B picture, so the producers and screen writers could have tried something different, not so predictable, run of the mill finale as in any A picture, big budget film with big stars. Yes, I could have expected and especially obtained something else than this second part. I don't care it is talkative, because the suspense is here but that's all. I don't know this director; there were many many unknown film makers in UK during the late fifties and early sixties.

A lot of mysteries have private investigators finding out the guy the cops think did the murder is innocent. In THE STRAW MAN -- based on a Doris Miles Disney story -- there's a nice entry to that trope. Philip Saville is tried for the murder of an old girl friend, and is waiting to be hanged; his life insurance company wants to save the expense of the 20,000 pounds payout, so they have Clifford Evans, one of their investigators, look into the matter.

The first third of the movie is slow and overloaded with dialogue, basically inert. At that point, the guilty parties are revealed -- and one accomplice is a suspect the mystery lover will have suspected from the beginning, but the other is not. At that point it turns into a "howcatchem" and becomes much more interesting.

Writer-Director Donald Taylor does an adequate job of translating Mrs. Disney's story to a movie, even if the performances are never more than adequate. Still, if you'd prefer to see the tale shown to you, rather than reading it, you'll find it an adequate version.