Shadow of Fear

Paul Maxwell is an oil executive about to fly to England, where he will spend some time with fiancee Clare Owen, then on to New York. An Englishman asks him to give a message to a man in London, explaining it's Secret Service stuff. Maxwell agrees. At the airport he is met by what he thinks is the man..... only he's not. He and Miss Owen agree to act as bait to trap the bad guys.

It's a nice set-up for a spy thriller, but then the script continues in the most boring way imaginable, with two men at a time on tiny sets talking about what is going on. The end opens up a little, as the action moves to boats on the Thames..... as two men at a time, on tiny sets, discuss what is going on. It's all very dull stuff, despite the belly dancer in the first sequence.

Only Butchers could have come up with a script in which the hero finds himself embroiled in international intrigue that ranges from Baghdad to a very wintry looking London to a very sunny Sussex Coast solely because of something seriously dumb he says early on (which even shamed the scriptwriter into having him remark "Maybe some day I'll learn to keep my mouth shut!").

Despite people getting killed and baddies pursuing the goodies by car from which they're shooting at them, it all seems a bit of lark and you get the sense of an expenses paid sojourn in Brighton for which the film was just a pretext; which would account for the unexpected presence of Hollywood actor John Sutton amidst familiar 'B' picture actors like Eric Pohlmann and Alan Tilvern.

But that's about it. The premise is promising - a British agent in Baghdad gives an oilman a coded message to deliver in London - but the whole thing is boringly and blandly shot, and the acting would shame the Charles Vance Players. Even the Haslemere Thespians could have done a better job.

It was an awful fashion year, and the oilman's rather chunky girlfriend sports some frumpy outfits and the most dreadful hat I think I've ever seen.

SHADOW OF FEAR is another cheap and uneventful thriller that comes to us courtesy of Butcher's Film Service. This one was filmed at Brighton Studios and makes some good use of wide open coastal photography, although the attempts to bring to life the Middle East on a non-existent budget are less than successful. The hero is the stolid Paul Maxwell (one of those unfamiliar leads with zero charisma) who is approached by a government contact in Baghdad and tasked with taking a message back to England to give to the secret service.

Unfortunately for Maxwell the contact is killed and a criminal gang show up in England to capture him. He escapes and with his girlfriend flees to the south coast, where the police plan to use the pair in a sting operation to catch the gang members. Unfortunately despite that story this short tale is anything but snappy; there's barely any action in it and, even worse, little suspense. The characters just go through the talky motions here without feeling invested in the tale. The only actor I recognised was Eric Pohlmann in support as one of the baddies. SHADOW OF FEAR is one of those films you can forget about entirely around ten minutes after viewing.

Yet another example of a budget-constrained small studio misguidedly believing that bringing in a B list Canadian actor to pose as American will give the film an international appeal. It doesn't. The lead character Martin (Paul Maxwell) and his girlfriend (Clare Owen) have about as much charisma as a block of Cathedral Cheddar cheese. At least the chief baddie Sharp (John Arnatt) gets to ham it up and say "I've been expecting you Mr Martin " in true sub-Blofeld mode. Nice to see Reginald Marsh, who many of my generation will remember from various 70's sit coms as the boss who's suddenly coming to dinner, appear as one of the good team.