What Happened Then?

Difficult to understand the high Mark for this rather weak quota quickie produced by British International Pictures.If the plot was not bad enough the acting,particularly by Richard Bird is beyond belief.He doesn't just chew the scenery he wolf's it down in one bite.I suppose that this was their idea of showing madness in that era.Raymond Huntley is hypnotized into falsely admitting to the murder.Difficult to realise that he was relatively young when he made this film.George Zucco appears briefly as a policeman and Francis L Sullivan appears as counsel for the prosecution.QUOTA Quickies can be well made despite the low budget and the speed with which the film had to be made,however this definitely not one of them and was destined for oblivion the day after they were released.No doubt the actors would wish to forget their participation.

In a contemporary advertisement, Richard Bird endorses a popular brand of cigarette. He enjoys one '10 minutes before my cue'. Given some of his bizarre histrionics in this film, one can only wonder if some rascal substituted one of his favourites for a more exotic weed. His performance has to be seen to be believed. There's plenty of competition though for worst actor from Geoffrey Wardwell, a young-(ish) Raymond Huntley and the man playing the murder victim. While Kathleen Harrison reminded me of the great Stanley Baxter playing Kathleen Harrison.

Black and white British films are often erroneously designated as Quota Quickies on IMDb and other sites, but this is an example of the real thing. An almost non-stop talk-fest taking place on a couple of sets, it was adapted apparently from a Broadway play and clearly with the minimum amount of imagination. It's one of those films that earned the Quickies and by extension British films in general such a poor reputation among many contemporary domestic audiences. There are some decent performances including those from the always reliable Francis L. Sullivan, while George Zucco turns up in a small role as a police inspector, but these hardly make it worth watching.

I am inserting reviews for all films I'v seen that so far lack one, as with most I can't really recommend this effort, review... This 'murder mystery' is little more than a filmed play, rich old unpopular uncle gets his throat slit one night, all the evidence points to his orphaned nephew, who was threatened with disinheritance as his uncle disapproved of his plans to marry, but is he guilty? It is very stagy, but worst that that it's not well acted and the story-line is poor, it has two points in it's favor, it's short 55m and the reason I tracked it down the great G.Zucco makes a couple of brief appearances as the investigating policeman, so overall OK. The DVD-r I saw may have been cut it ran 54m32s was a 'soft' copy and jammed occasionally, I wonder why the previous people who rated this film thought better of it? Oh almost forgot, I watched this 2 months ago, when I got round to this review I had forgotten the film, so had to watch it again to do the review!

Geoffrey Wardwell's uncle was murdered by having his throat cut with a razor. Wardwell wanted to marry, and his uncle said he would cut the youngster out of his will. Wardwell's fingerprints were found on the scene of the crime, in his uncle's blood. Prosecuting Counsel Francis L. Sullivan has no trouble convincing the jury of his guilt, despite the statement of Dr. Lawrence Hanray that Wardwell had an absolute phobia about blood that would have made it impossible without.... unless, of course, he was hypnotized at the time.

Guilty and appeal rejected, and Lorna Hubbard is hysterical. She promises to marry Wardwell's friend, Richard Bird, if he can save him.

Based on a play by Lilian Trimble, it's not a particularly fair mystery, with lots of obvious red herrings and the cheapness with which it was shot -- two sets -- is evident. With George Zucco and Kathleen Harrison.