Tiger by the Tail

American reporter Larry Parks starts an affair with mysterious Lisa Daniely. She's shot with her own pistol, and Parks finds a contact list with criminals written in code. Now they're after him. If only he realized how beautiful his smart assistant, Constance Smith is! But she never takes off her glasses.

It's a fair thriller under the direction of John Gilling with a strong noir air, aided by Eric Cross' camerawork. Parks was trying to find work after he had been blacklisted in the United States, and Miss Smith had been dropped from her Fox contract when her movies hadn't found much favor with the public. This one didn't help their careers. Parks made one more movie, and Miss Smith's career dwindled out in the late 1950s. With Cyril Chamberlain, Donald Stewart, and Thora Hird.

Another film with an american lead but at least he plays an american. I love the plot idea and it works well at the beginning with decent acting. It slows when the 'committee' gets mentioned and some bits are a bit improbable towards the end. But it was worth the watch!

Although reportedly a travesty of the late John Mair's 1941 novel, this film version still packs plenty into just 85 minutes; particularly when it develops a Hitchcockian sense of humour that anticipates 'North by Northwest' at about the halfway mark, at which point heroine Constance Smith also assumes a more prominent role. (A fourth-billed Cyril Chamberlain too has a much more prominent role than we are accustomed to seeing him in.)

The first of two films made by Larry Parks during his European exile (the second being John Huston's 'Freud' in 1962) after being blacklisted in 1951; the scene where he gets roughed up on behalf of the sinister "committee" by a bunch of mean-looking goons who want to know "Where's the contact list?" must have instilled in him a sense of deja vue.

Despite having a pretty lacklustre cast, John Gilling adapts his own story quite well here to create a slightly more intriguing mystery. This time the visiting American box-office star is Larry Parks and he dons the role of journalist "Desmond". He has barely stepped off the plane when he finds himself embroiled with "Anna" (Lisa Daniely). Her part in the film is somewhat short-lived and soon our intrepid reporter is discovering that not only is he a person of interest to the police, but he is also being sought by her erstwhile employers who know that he has her valuable - and incriminating - contacts list! What adds a little to the interest here is the style of story-telling. Whilst it does deprive the plot of much jeopardy, it also sets an effective template for what is the retrospective nature of the unfolding of events. The supporting cast - notably Constance Smith as his assistant "Jane" are adequate and although it could comfortably have lost fifteen minutes off the rather meandering central section of the film, it's still a decent little thriller.

I had never heard of Director John Gilling - who also has a hand in the screenplay in TIGER BY THE TAIL - but his is a name that I will look out for from now on: he managed a work of real quality in the areas of acting, cinematography, editing, script, and art direction.

The acting, especially by Cyril Chamberlain as the quietly evil Foster, alias Dr Wainwright, and by the stunningly beautiful Constance Smith, deserves plaudits. On a lesser level, Thora Hird (who would subsequently shine on British TV), Donald Stewart as a kind of childish and British Dan Duryea, and the central male lead Larry Parks, who fills the then necessary American quota but actually neither looks nor sounds convincing enough for the part, let alone to catch a scrumptious dish like Constance.

The latter is the epitome of the British secretary's efficiency in the film, and the epitome of British feminine class and beauty, and I could watch her elegantly move about for the rest of my life.

Cinematography by Eric Cross is superb, well judged editing, and the soundtrack by the uncredited Stanley Black reflects quality and purpose even if rather subtle and often silenced off somewhat too soon.

Perhaps the ending could have been clearer but to me it does not damage the rest of the flick. Really enjoyed it!