A Stranger in Town

This is a fairly routine British thriller from the 50s starring yet another has been American actor in the hope that the producers can find an American distributor.Many of the elements of this film are well worn not to say hackneyed.However my unhappiness with the film is due to the fact that it doesn't play fair.The audience should always have a clue as to whom the actual killer is.However in this film i had no idea who the killer was because he confessed to motives that were never revealed to us.There is nothing remarkable at all about this film and i guess that this would have ended up as the bottom half of a double bill which is where it belonged.

An eccentric, anti-social American composer/pianist living in a small British town commits suicide...or does he? An American reporter on holiday in the UK who is from the composer's hometown agrees to bring some of his personal things back to the family in the US and to meet some of the composer's friends while in England. As he asks around, something doesn't seem right, and the mystery begins. The British have always been able to make excellent low-budget murder mysteries, and this one is yet another little-known gem. The supporting cast were unfamiliar to me, but all were convincing as the small-town folks who had some kind of dealings with the late composer. Alex Nicol, who did a lot of acting work in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, is a somewhat laid-back leading man, but that fits well here (actually, his performance reminds me a bit of John Agar). The resolution is somewhat unexpected but all the clues were there in hindsight, and I plan to watch the film a second time soon to see how the mystery is constructed and the clues are placed. If you like "B" murder mysteries, especially British ones, check this out.

A straightforward murder mystery set in and around a sleepy English village, A STRANGER IN TOWN features imported American star Alex Nicol (who is much better than he was in THE GILDED CAGE) as a guy who shows up in the UK after his good friend, a composer, commits suicide. He's only there to gather a few belongings to return to the States but a mysterious note warning him of intrigue leads him to stay on and investigate the apparent suicide himself.

What follows is the uncovering of a hotbed of conspiracy and murder, with various characters hiding their true motivations. I quite like these gentleman detective films such as this and A STRANGER IN TOWN has a fairly good plot, although it lacks excitement and it cheats a bit by not allowing the viewer to work out the murderer's identity until the climax. Nicol's encounters with a volatile farmer are my favourite moments here.

The supporting cast is a solid one that includes Colin Tapley as a toff, Anne Paige as a would-be love interest, and Charles Lloyd Pack as a former army man. John Horsley is the usual dogged cop who adds little to the narrative other than to pad out the running time. Harry Towb and Arthur Lowe have bit parts.

The directorial debut of George Pollock, who later made several more films about violent death in placid surroundings; but here the tone is much darker than in his Miss Marple mysteries and we get Chopin on the soundtrack rather than Ron Godwin's jaunty theme.

Mona Washbourne would have made a splendid Miss Marple, but instead of an eccentric old spinster stepping on the toes of the local constabulary the amateur sleuth is this time played by crew-cut yank Alex Nicol (who gets as warm a welcome from the locals as Spencer Tracy got in 'Bad Day at Black Rock'); although there are quite a few engaging performances by the other women in the cast (of whom I would like to have seen more of Mary Laura Wood & Betty Impey).

An American composer living in a small English town commits suicide.... apparently. A month later, Alex Nicol shows up. He's a friend of the dead man's uncle, here to find out what happened, take a picture of the grave, that sort of thing. People are generally helpful, except for the local drunk, who picks a fight. He's about to leave, when something changes his mind. The locals realize he suspects murder, and they close ranks against him.

It's a nice atmospheric movie most of the way through, although the ending seems pretty random. There are a couple of nice performances: Mona Washbourne is a lot of fun as the local spinster who writes poetry and brew parsnip wine; Hal Osmond has a fine small role as a bored bar man who chats with Nicol and expresses regret at not having said something that might have prevented the presumed suicide. It's a decent first directorial effort by George Pollock, who had spent 20 years as an Assistant Director, including working for David Lean in the mid-1940s and as Second Unit Director of THE THIRD MAN. Pollock would direct for about ten years; his best remembered stuff was the Margaret Rutherford "Miss Marple" comedy-mysteries. He would work with Kubrick on special effects for 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and die in 1979, aged 72.