Barbados Quest

In London, J. D. Everleigh purchases a rare stamp from Geoffrey Blake who claims to represent famous stamp trader Robert Coburn. He does bring along stamp expert Lord Valchrist to verify. Later, he finds the same stamp with his friend even though there should only be one available for sale. He starts to have doubts and hires private eye Tom Martin (Tom Conway) to investigate.

This is a British crime drama. It is very much the old style mystery detective. It may be an attempt to start a franchise. It is more a howcatchem since the bad guys are right there. I like the starting premise. It is all very average and not memorable.

This B-film from producers Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman is very much in the style of their later television success The Saint. Indeed, Tom Conway had played The Saint on American radio and was best known for The Falcon, an identical character, in a series of 1940s B-films he had inherited from his brother George Sanders, who had also donned the halo. Like those films, this British effort was distributed by RKO and sticks so closely to the formula that it is almost indistinguishable from a Falcon film, but with names changed and the setting switched to England, and the plot concerning stamps - forged, rare and stolen.

Conway is as good as ever as Tom 'Duke' Martin, with his Errol Flynn-like good looks and suave, twinkly-eyed demeanour - though, at 51, was beginning to show his age. As with the Falcon series, he has a stout, former crook for a comical sidekick, now played by reliable B-film regular Michael Balfour. Elsewhere, Brian Worth as Blake is conceited, vaguely sinister and reminiscent of a young Dennis Price, while John Horsley is excellent in another of his many detective portrayals.

However, while the counterfeit racket is a neat one and a car chase perks things up in the middle, the plot is somewhat convoluted and the viewer must keep track of which is the real stamp. The villain is more or less known from the outset and the interest comes from how Tom makes sense of it all, so there is little consistent suspense. I saw it twice before I understood everything, so can only imagine how cinema-goers felt on seeing it only once.

Such quibbles aside, this is a functional B-film and a must-see for fans of The Falcon. A sequel, Breakaway, was released the next year. Both films were a success, mostly due to the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedies they were paired with, and a television series was apparently even mooted, though did not materialise.

Given that this film was made for distribution by RKO Radio maybe it is not surprising that this comes out as a rather pale imitation of The Saint and Falcon films made by RKO in the 1940s,in which Tom Conway appeared.He is called "the Duke" and has a comedy sidekick who is feebly played by Michael Balfour>In fact I recall that one of the Saint pictures had a plot revolving around stamps.Here every cliché in the book is thrown in.Bodies that disappear witnesses who do a runner.Everything about this production feels tired and second rate not least Tom Conway who is clearly just going through the motions.Merely a time passer.

A thriller based around stamp-collecting doesn't sound too promising, though I do remember the Leslie Charteris short-story about a rare stamp, later adapted for a TV episode of The Saint - who had been played earlier on radio by Tom Conway, seen here in one of his few starring roles.

As the all-important stamp in the present film was an early Barbados issue, I would have thought that a sub-plot about a duplicate specimen popping up somewhere on the island would have provided some welcome contrast to the monotonous grey London of this production. But as it is, 'Barbados Quest' is just a silly catchpenny title, sensibly changed to 'Murder on Approval', referencing the stamp-trader's terms of business, known to every schoolboy collector.

If you see Conway as a poor man's George Sanders, that is exactly what he was - the younger brother, whose career would presently disappear down the neck of a bottle. He really does nothing special here, even when complemented by his reasonably comic sidekick Michael Balfour. But of course, this was 1955, when almost anything would do.

In an industry that rests on distinguishing the real from the counterfeit, we may have more reason than usual to question people's motives, and I could name two pillars of respectability who are not quite what they seem, but I prefer to stay away from the spoiler game.

In some ways it's just a product of its era, with that giveaway cliché "And now, if you'll excuse me..." popping up three times. And we can't reveal the climax, except that a couple of good guys burst in at the last moment, as in the standard endings of 'Murder She Wrote'.

Murder On Approval casts Tom Conway the screen's former Falcon as a private investigator hired by Launce Maraschal an American who got swindled while he was on the other side of the pond. Although Conway says philately is not his specialty he takes the case probably because the considerable retainer of $10,000.00 has something to do with it.

The purloined stamp that was being sold from a private collection is only the tip of an iceberg. Conway and his trusty sidekick Michael Balfour get themselves involved in a nice little ongoing fraud involving a purloined rare stamp from Barbadoes from the collection of the late former husband of Grace Arnold. In fact Ms. Arnold is in some considerable danger herself from some who are around here.

The film which was shot in Great Britain and released in the USA by RKO has the look and feel of a television pilot. Conway like so many players took to the small screen as the B picture was being phased out of existence. He starred for a few seasons as Inspector Mark Saber on the small screen.

Given the budget and limited cast members suspects are not many and in fact it's rather obvious what's going on halfway through the film. Cute racket though.