The Arsenal Stadium Mystery

Did you know that the game played at Highbury (The Arsenal Stadium,) before the outbreak of World War II, wasn't a big League match, an important FA Cup tie or even an International, it was in fact the game that was played in the film!!! Not alot of people know that! (But they do know now!)

I probably agree with most comments here: a good not great film but still interesting in so many ways, mainly from the historical perspective. The world depicted was on another planet - even though Britain was at war the lunatics would not start to take over the asylum for another 30 years or so.

Professional Arsenal take on the amateur Trojans in special football match attended by millions of blue-chins in macs and hats live on BBC radio, and even commentated by legendary voice E.V.H. Emmett borrowed from Gaumont. One of the Trojans, a bit of a womaniser with a lot of enemies falls down dead at the beginning of the second half and the game is abandoned and is simultaneously on to find out whodunit. Slade of Scotland Yard is on the case, an inspector with eccentric and disconcerting habits played fantastically by Leslie Banks in a variety of appropriate hats. Although thousands of the Arsenal fans who saw todays game at the Emirates probably live in houses built before 1940 the "beautiful game" seems to have changed almost beyond recognition - capitalist business pressures seem to have atrophied everything that was once decent about it. The footballers played and the hordes watched as though it was only a game and didn't matter - the rich thugs who go to work on the pitch today present a completely different picture! Anyone fancy going back and practising heading those leather footballs? Surely they would miss the legalised GBH and sliding about in each others phlegm and spit! The mystery itself was simple but well padded out and entertaining, and the acting abilities veered from adequately professional to woodenly amateur.

I never bothered taping or buying this because it's on UK Channel 4 every few years – I assume it's always been bought so regularly mainly as a laugh for hooligans by the schedulers and not just for film fans. Use the chance when they provide it to watch this enjoyable and decent film non-cynically instead.

There are several reasons to relish this curio. It was a prentice work by Thorold Dickinson, the Hitchcock assistant and cutter who would shoot "Gaslight" and "The Queen of Spades" before becoming Britain's first professor of film. It is one of the earliest sports movies to feature real sportsmen- acting very woodenly, as befits stiff-upper-lip soccer stars. It is anchored by a mischievously eccentric performance by Leslie Banks, who a few years later was to be the magnificent Chorus of Olivier's "Henry V".

Above all, the film lets us glimpse pre-war Britain's, maybe the world's, leading football club. Arsenal FC, the "Gunners", had been raised to pre-eminence by Herbert Chapman, Britain's first modern soccer manager, until his untimely death in 1934. Five years later his team were still on top, coached by his deputy George Allison, who appears in the movie.

Highbury Stadium, the setting for the murder, was state of the art. The scene in the treatment room underlines Chapman's far-sighted, scientific approach to caring for his players. He was an early advocate of floodlights and numbered shirts, and even got the name of the local Tube station altered to advertise the Gunners. The film was a massive plug for them; alas, soon after its release the Second World War meant that the lads had to pick up real guns and compete in a more dangerous game. Afterwards Arsenal did not recover its top-of-the-tree status for 25 years. Unwittingly this production memorialises its greatest era.

A better than average quickie, with a number of interesting features. Leslie Banks' outrageous performance has been noted, but Ian McLean, not a well-known film actor, is very good value as his long-suffering sergeant, with dry wit and a poker face. It is also notable for being the only British appearance of Liane Linden, a winsome Norwegian actress who might have made it in British movies had she remained. Richard Norris also impresses as the chemist Setchley, but his film career was cut short by his death in battle at Salerno. George Allison, the Arsenal manager of the time, actually puts in a decent performance, although he was unlikely to be nominated for a BAFTA. There are also splendid cameos from Bruce Winston, Maire O'Neill and the actor playing the receptionist at Doyce's flat.

The resolution isn't entirely satisfactory - there appears to be no reason for the murderer to give him- or herself away at the denouement, as there was no damning evidence to be retrieved. The clue to the motive of the murders is oddly reminiscent to a similar clue in Saloon Bar, another whodunnit of about the same time, and the background is written up more thoroughly in the novel of the film by Leonard Gribble, recently republished by the British Library.

No I was not born when this film was made but I was a season ticket holder there between 1961 and 2006.I can confirm that this film faithfully reproduces the dressing room areas of the ground.I would like to correct factual errors by other reviewers.Firstly this was not the last game at the stadium before the outbreak of war.This was the game v Sunderland played on September 1939 when Arsenal beat Sunderland 3-1.However the game does not count in the records as the league season was abandoned with the outbreak of war.Secondly it did not take 25 years for Arsenal return to glory.They won the league in 1947 and 1953 and the cup in 1950.This is an a very enjoyable film,which is very nostalgic for Arsenal supporters who fondly remember Highbury.