L'inchiesta dell'ispettore Morgan

An excellent Stanley Baker in full Welsh-accented flow as the idiosyncratic DI David Evan Morgan unravelling the murder of a French woman at her oddly gaudy London flat. Baker keeps an unconventionally close rein on Hardy Kruger, who maintains his innocence whilst withholding enough information to keep the inspector interested in his relationship with the dead woman. Being found at the murder scene doesn't help the young Dutchman's situation. Some flashbacks give us the background to the tensions between the struggling artist and his muse. Downing a considerable quantity of milk (peptic ulcers were the cause of the commonest surgical operation in the late 1950s - fewer cigarillos would help Stanley) Morgan has to juggle his quest for the truth with the usual insistence from above that a top level government minister is not to be embarrassed by the outcome.

It can sometimes be interesting to study the early work of directors who were later to emerge as important figures in cinema. Some show little indication of what is to come (Carol Reed's "Bank Holiday " for instance) while with others the fingerprints are all there (Hitchcock's "The Lodger" and David Lynch's "Eraserhead"). Joseph Losey falls somewhere between these two extremes. An early work such as "Blind Date" has a competence and clearheaded sense of narrative flow that place it on a higher level than most B-style thrillers to emerge from British studios in the '50's but there is little of the original stamp that was to mark his later work such as "The Servant", "The Go-between" and "Accident". These films provide fascinating commentaries that an outsider from the USA brought to bear on the British class system. There is a little in "Blind Date" about the social hierarchy within the British police force, but this is peripheral to Losey's main task of presenting a neat little thriller well. He keeps the tension going nicely to begin with, with a young Dutch artist visiting a flat where he expects to find a woman he has been having a liaison with, only to find himself soon embroiled with the police. The script has a neat way of evading what is going on until some way into the film. Some of the flashbacks go on for rather too long and are somewhat weakened by a rather wooden performance by Micheline Presle as the woman of mystery. Hardy Kruger, on the other hand, as the young Dutchman is excellent. We really identify with his frustration at finding himself in a situation that is beyond his comprehension and control. As the main detective Stanley Baker plays cat and mouse with his customary skill. "Blind Date" is in so sense an important or significant film, but the fact that it was competently made by a director who was later to produce some outstanding works of British cinema makes it worth a look. There are two other good reasons for watching - photography by Christopher Challis and music by Richard Rodney Bennett - both considerable artists in their respective fields.

I wouldn't say this is a film to stimulate the senses, not one packed with energy, but it's success lies very much in its subtlety, delivery and superb performances.

It's a wonderfully stylish film, it looks so good, from the very bright start to the rather downbeat conclusion. The story is fed out very slowly, with the story unravelling teasingly slowly. As a mystery it works well, what seems so obvious initially isn't quite the case, so much more is happening, with a twist waiting.

Great performances, Hardy Kruger was fantastic in the lead role. Very much a battle of the classes, with a hugely socialist element on show, but it fits in well.

Very enjoyable, slick movie. 8/10

At first sight ,"Blind date" recalls some Agatha Christie play.Only three characters are really important and they all have. a different nationality:Baker is English,Krüger is German (Dutch in the movie!) and Micheline Presles is French.People who know Preminger's "Laura" cannot help but be struck by the way Presles's character is used.

But the essentials are somewhere else.Losey had always been fascinated by the social status,particularly the upper classes' decay:to name but three ,"the servant" ,"the gypsy and the gentleman" and "the go-between" were blatant examples.Here prole Kruger would be an ideal culprit,he who only owns one suit,thus a good way of avoiding scandal.Presles and her husband are the posh people at the top,but they are about to fall in their mire.

That said,Losey's directing is a bit static,and looks like some filmed stage production.The jaunty first and last pictures seem irrelevant.

This is basically a mystery story, but the mystery itself and its solution are not very satisfying. The best is that in the mean time we get to see some character study. And Losey's mise-en-scene is above average, as usual.