The Late Edwina Black

The woman is dead but more alive than anyone else in the film, while they are all kept busy by her paranormal terror, using her life-long housemaid for an instrument. Jean Cadell is the housemaid and splendid as a formidable dinosaur. David Farrar is the husband and widower of the deceased and a victim of her terror for being just a poor school-teacher, while she was rich enough to own him. Geraldine Fitzgerald is the other victim as the secretary at the mercy of her whims of cruelty against her for being in love with her husband. So all have motives for disposing of the bed-ridden hag except Jean Cadell, who keeps her haunting and alive in the house after her death. Roland Culver is a very prudent police inspector who has to investigate a possible crime and who enjoys a cup of tea any time all around the clock. It's a great chamber play of tremendous passions with many outbursts of exploding tempers. Besides the tight and intensive dialog and the acute drama, it's a very beautiful film in a perfectly romantic environment in a great villa with a park and garden and a greenhouse and ideal music by Allan Gray. Everything combines to form a perfect domestic thriller of critical relationships driven to the brink of self-destruction, and nothing is missing to make it perfect. The only objection would be that it is too short - "the shortest full-length film I ever watched" as one reviewer aptly summed up his experience.

The Late Edwina Black is directed by Maurice Elvey and adapted to screenplay by Charles Frank and David Evans from the play of the same name by William Dinner and William Morum. It stars David Farrar, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Roland Culver and Jean Cadell. Music is by Allan Gray and cinematography by Stephen Dade.

It's Victorian England and Edwina Black has just died. When a fatal dosage of arsenic is revealed to be the cause of death, suspicion falls on Edwina's husband Gregory (Farrar) and her house companion Elizabeth (Fitzgerald). More so when it becomes apparent that Gregory and Elizabeth are having a passionate love affair. Intrepid Inspector Martin (Culver) investigates as housekeeper Ellen (Cadell) looks on with interest from the shadows.

Under seen Brit period mystery resplendent with moody melodramatics and some spooky shenanigans. This is all about a mystery to be solved in a big Victorian house bathed in shadows and low lights. There is only three suspects, so for those paying attention from the off the mystery is a little weak, while there's some over acting indicative of the time.

However, Elvey and Dade prove very adept at creating a house of ominous atmosphere, where although the hinted at supernatural elements are not in the realm of horror, they work well in context of the back drop. Characterisations are nicely drawn, especially when the harmony of Gregory and Elizabeth's affair begins to crack.

It all builds to a quintessentially olde British finale, as the great Roland Culver gets to do his Hercule Poirot act, all neatly revealed over a cup of tea! Hooray! 7/10

Suspicion falls on widower David Farrar and his pert young mistress (Geraldine Fitzgerald) when his sickly, shrewish wife dies of arsenic poisoning. Veteran director Maurice Elvey creates a nicely ominous atmosphere as the ghostly influence of the dead woman seems to pit the lovers against one another, but the middle act, in which Farrar and Fitzgerald grow increasingly suspicious of the other's possible motive for murder, tends to drag. Roland Culver as a dogged, no-nonsense Scotland Yard detective livens things up considerably.

"The Late Edwina Black" is a most unusual murder mystery because instead of focusing on the accused, it focuses on three people and you see how they react to the possibility that the others are killers. Because of this, it's a great look at human nature at all its worst!

The story begins with Mrs. Black being found dead. Following her funeral, a police inspector shows up...indicating that there might have been foul play and he was having the body exhumed. It turns out that the lady's body was full of arsenic....and the remaining 80% of the film consists of the members of the household reacting to this.

The acting is very good in this one and the story quite good. My only quibble is the ending...I really think leaving it more vague would have been much more interesting following the inspector's revelation. Still, well worth seeing and fascinating throughout.

Edwina Black has died and an autopsy shows she was poisoned with arsenic. Meanwhile, her widower and his secretary (played by the wonderful Geraldine Fitzgerald), who have been waiting for her to die, are preparing to go off to the Continent. While the police inspector (played slowly and perfectly by Roland Culver) investigates, they turn on each other in private. Who poisoned Edwina Black? Who is lying?

Maurice Elvey, one of the great forgotten talents of the British film industry, directs this as an Old Dark House mystery, where the spirit of the late Edwina Black is evinced by the low light levels and the occasional tinkling of a crystal chandelier. His use of camera movement is almost undetectable unless you look for it -- it serves merely to maintain composition. Elvey was among the most subtle of directors in the British industry -- he did what he did in support of the movie, lacked any of the immodesty that the auteur-loving writers of the CAHIERS DE CINEMA adored and made an excellent movie in the process. Take a look at this one and see.