Girl in the Headlines

I think the criticisms of this film are a bit strong. We have to remember that 45 years have elapsed since it was made and our tastes have become more sophisticated with the diet of increasingly slick and clever movies and TV series that we now enjoy. I think Hendry plays the detective role well - sort of laid back and not falling into the cliché characterisations of the time. He is a Jaguar driving opera loving detective (now which more modern detective series does that remind you of?). I had not seen this film before watching it the other day on Movies4Men (UK) and enjoyed it for what it was - a fairly entertaining movie from the early 60's.

To be honest it would have been pretty awful if it hadn't been for Ian Hendry and Ronald Frasier as the detective and sergeant. A formula we got used to during the 1990s, but it wasn't new. No Hiding Place had the same sort of format.

A young Jane Asher was completely OTT as the daughter and Jeremy Brett showed glimpses of better things to come.

The crime was all a bit implausible and I didn't really know who was doing what and why at the end.

What was the business with the oars? We were never shown the reason why they were important.

It is based on the 1961 novel The Nose on my Face by actor Laurence Payne.

'Britmovie' called the film a "cleverly plotted thriller directed by ex-Ealing editor/producer Michael Truman... Hendry's committed performance and Fraser's underplayed support dominate the film as the two policemen on the case.

Inspector Ian Hendry and his sergeant, Ronald Fraser, are at the scene of a murder.A girl who makes her living as a model is dead in her apartment. Their investigation starts with her upstairs neighbor, a famous television actor, and continues slowly, from a painter with a rough marriage, to a gambling club, and eventually to the shady world of the drug trade.

It's a bit slow and ponderous over the course of its 90 minutes, and eventually the solution is pulled out at the last minute, quite unfairly for the mystery form. The major point of the movie is the contrast between Hendry's utterly normal home life and the dark and dismal world into which his investigations take him, leading eventually to a confrontation in a graveyard.

It's certainly well acted, with the reliable performer Fraser showing more flashes of wit than his rough appearance usually permitted him during his career. It's a worthwhile movie, until it fell to pieces for me at the very end.

Unfortunately, missed the first half hour due to misguided decision to see first half of Watford v Brentford. (It won't happen again !) Wonderful and riveting film from the golden age of British noir - this must have been one of the first films Hendry did post Avengers. Portrayal of style and seediness very reminiscent of Raymond Chandler. Beautifully understated acting from Hendry - I wonder if Steve McQueen or Peter Yates saw this ? Would give extra star but for slightly annoying Jane Asher as needy middle class daughter !

There were thousands of this kind of topics, especially in the British film industry, and this one remains in the good ones, though there is nothing exceptional. You have to like this atmosphere, I don't, and Ian Hendry is as good as ever in the detective, inspector, role a police officer who has the habit to remove his shoes at home and in his office, behind his desk. The little charm of this kind of production. I would have enjoyed it if there had not been a mystery scheme. It is not 1.66 frame but 2.35. That's the way I saw it on my TV set. The last minute worth the whole suspense. Even less than last minute.