Wanted for Murder

Don't be put off by the generic title. This is a film of subtlety and grace.

Eric Portman is perfect as the troubled protagonist. Dulcie Gray enchants as the vulnerable yet strong-willed heroine. And the supporting cast is uniformly excellent.

This is a variation on the Jack the Ripper theme. Someone is strangling young women, sending notes to Scotland Yard in advance. Ronald Culver is absolutely right as the chief inspector on the case.

The psychology may be painted with slightly broad strokes. But the acting elevate that: The pain felt by all concerned is palpable. We do not admire the killer but we have understanding of the person's behavior. The victims and would-be victims are touching. And the attempts by secondary characters to help are persuasive and upsetting to us.

This is not a whodunit for one knows the identity of the killer ;it's more psychological drama,and some of its aspects somewhat predate works like Hitchcock 's "strangers on a train "(1951): the mother is omnipresent in the miserable murderer 's life,and in his house ,he only sees women such as his auntie and the servant ;although she notices he's always gone at night , the mother seems to want to ignore what might lay beneath : she knows the family has a history of family of mental illness,but she tries to reassure herself by saying he takes after her and soon he'll find the right girl and settle down .But isn't it already too late? The scene in the museum means a lot: he does need someone to lean on , but by introducing the right girl from the first sequence , the screenwriter (Powell's collaborator, Pressburger) creates a blind alley at the same time : the nice bus conductor.

Other similarities with Hitchcock's 1951 thriller:the fascination for amusement parks ,the final sequence in the island (which appears earlier in "stranger on a train" ). Both murderer are well respected men .

With his aristocratic look,his refined manners , Eric Portman gives a restrained performance but behind the mask,he conceals an intense suffering ; he may show infinite tenderness when he holds the girl in his arms ,and the murder is almost unexpected (directing avoids horror and treats the sequence in a stunning way)

I always thought that Eric Portman was never much more than an efficient actor; rarely does he ever deviate from his usual, rather linear, style of performance. This one, though, is a bit different and he is rather good as the son of a hangman who, losing his grasp on reality, is obsessed with strangling young women. With the police (Roland Culver & a rather entertaining Stanley Holloway) hot on the trail, he falls for Dulcie Gary ("Anne") and for the first time, he has doubts about what to do next... Lawrence Huntingdon has done a decent job with a solid cast based on quite an intriguing Percy Robinson play - and the last twenty minute build to quite an exciting crescendo that takes more than a casual swipe at red tape and the "more than my job's worth" brigade... Certainly worth a go - you might spot Wilfred Hyde-White at Madame Tussaud's!

Eric Portman (Viktor) is the grandson of a notorious hangman. His grandfather's sadistic, psychotic reputation as a killer plays heavily on Portman's psyche. Actually, it does more than that - it influences his behaviour. However, he is unable to change who he is. A serial killer is at large murdering women and goading the police. Can Roland Culver (Inspector Conway) and his team prevent the killer from striking again and again....?

This film contains some dodgy accents, in particular, a very posh bus driver as played by Derek Farr (Jack) and a young Scottish woman, Jenny Laird (Jeannie), who comes from absolutely nowhere in Scotland. There are humorous moments eg, Stanley Holloway's portrayal of "Sgt Sullivan" and Gerard Kempinski as a waiter, alongside tense dramatic sections, eg, the murder of Jenny Laird (Jeannie) in the park. I found Barbara Everest as "Mrs Colebrooke" slightly weird b t it's a minor point in an otherwise convincing tale of a killer who is born to kill. We are left in no doubt as to who the killer is from the beginning and this adds to the tension throughout the film. I thought that the killer's fate was rather convenient - an easy way to end the film - but it's still a good film.

Wanted for Murder is directed by Lawrence Huntington and adapted to screenplay by Emeric Pressburger, Rodney Ackland, Barbara Everest and Maurice Cowan from the play by Terence De Marney and Percy Robinson. It stars Eric Portman, Dulcie Gray, Derek Farr, Roland Culver and Stanley Holloway. Music is by Mischa Spoliansky and cinematography by Mutz Greenbaum.

Nifty little thriller noir this, basically it finds Portman as the sinister Victor James Colebrook, a man with murderous instincts born out by bad seed lineage in his family tree. Can intrepid Chief Inspector Conway (Culver) nail his man before he kills yet again? Imperative since Victor has latched onto Anne Fielding (Gray), and although he is in love with her, he doesn't know how long he can contain his blood lust.

Thought to be influenced by a real life serial killer, Huntington's movie is very Hitchcockian in tone. Story unfolds by night in a London of dimly lighted foggy streets and dense shadowed parks, and by day it's the hustle and bustle of the city that provides a backdrop of false normalcy. As the tormented Victor goes about his way, leading his double life as a cunning member of society who dotes on his mother – and that of a strangler of women – the makers ensure the surroundings suit the persona.

A chapter of the story set at a carnival pulses with unease, a visit to a wax museum really gets to the heart of the evil, a murder sequence that is off camera strikes all the right terrifying notes, and a quite brilliant passage that sees witnesses come face to face with the killer in Conway's office is superbly performed by all involved. Then there is the finale that plays out at night (naturally) at the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park. Wonderful!

Portman (A Canterbury Tale/Dear Murderer) was a British treasure, an actor whose career begs for reappraisal by classic film fans. Here he is right on the money as the complex sociopath who detests what he has become and even dangles clues for the police to follow. Yet he also slips easily into society with a measured calmness that is rather chilling. Portman quite simply is excellent. As are Culver and Holloway as the sort of coppers Britain could do with having more of these days!

With Pressburger as part of the writing team it's no surprise to find the script tight and the dialogue snappy, Huntington (The Upturned Glass) and Greenbaum (Night and the City) never miss the chance to accentuate the psychological tremors by way of smart visuals, and Spoliansky's music is devilishly spectral like. It probably could have been shorn of ten minutes and the Dulcie Gray/Derek Farr romance gets a little twee at times, but this is well worth checking out and deserves to be better known. 8/10