Recherché pour meurtre

I always thought that Eric Portman was never much more than an efficient actor; rarely does he ever deviate from his usual, rather linear, style of performance. This one, though, is a bit different and he is rather good as the son of a hangman who, losing his grasp on reality, is obsessed with strangling young women. With the police (Roland Culver & a rather entertaining Stanley Holloway) hot on the trail, he falls for Dulcie Gary ("Anne") and for the first time, he has doubts about what to do next... Lawrence Huntingdon has done a decent job with a solid cast based on quite an intriguing Percy Robinson play - and the last twenty minute build to quite an exciting crescendo that takes more than a casual swipe at red tape and the "more than my job's worth" brigade... Certainly worth a go - you might spot Wilfred Hyde-White at Madame Tussaud's!

This is not a whodunit for one knows the identity of the killer ;it's more psychological drama,and some of its aspects somewhat predate works like Hitchcock 's "strangers on a train "(1951): the mother is omnipresent in the miserable murderer 's life,and in his house ,he only sees women such as his auntie and the servant ;although she notices he's always gone at night , the mother seems to want to ignore what might lay beneath : she knows the family has a history of family of mental illness,but she tries to reassure herself by saying he takes after her and soon he'll find the right girl and settle down .But isn't it already too late? The scene in the museum means a lot: he does need someone to lean on , but by introducing the right girl from the first sequence , the screenwriter (Powell's collaborator, Pressburger) creates a blind alley at the same time : the nice bus conductor.

Other similarities with Hitchcock's 1951 thriller:the fascination for amusement parks ,the final sequence in the island (which appears earlier in "stranger on a train" ). Both murderer are well respected men .

With his aristocratic look,his refined manners , Eric Portman gives a restrained performance but behind the mask,he conceals an intense suffering ; he may show infinite tenderness when he holds the girl in his arms ,and the murder is almost unexpected (directing avoids horror and treats the sequence in a stunning way)

Eric Portman (Viktor) is the grandson of a notorious hangman. His grandfather's sadistic, psychotic reputation as a killer plays heavily on Portman's psyche. Actually, it does more than that - it influences his behaviour. However, he is unable to change who he is. A serial killer is at large murdering women and goading the police. Can Roland Culver (Inspector Conway) and his team prevent the killer from striking again and again....?

This film contains some dodgy accents, in particular, a very posh bus driver as played by Derek Farr (Jack) and a young Scottish woman, Jenny Laird (Jeannie), who comes from absolutely nowhere in Scotland. There are humorous moments eg, Stanley Holloway's portrayal of "Sgt Sullivan" and Gerard Kempinski as a waiter, alongside tense dramatic sections, eg, the murder of Jenny Laird (Jeannie) in the park. I found Barbara Everest as "Mrs Colebrooke" slightly weird b t it's a minor point in an otherwise convincing tale of a killer who is born to kill. We are left in no doubt as to who the killer is from the beginning and this adds to the tension throughout the film. I thought that the killer's fate was rather convenient - an easy way to end the film - but it's still a good film.

This is like a Dostyevsky thriller, you know the murderer from the start, and you have the privilege of together with the script writer gradually intersecting him piece by piece, to get into the very heart of the matter of his complex psychology. Like Raskolnikov, he almost begs to get found out and be delivered, Eric Portman makes a fantastic performance by never sparing the poor murderer his tribulations, who can't help being what he is, he can't explain it and understand it either, and he even prays to God to be set free. The explanations of the malaise "being in the blood" is poor and does not hold. And then there are all the other persons getting involved, his poor mother above all, who never suspects her son to be as affected as his father until it is too late, and his girls, all innocents and suspecting nothing, and then the marvellous police officers, the meticulously methodical Roland Culver deliberately beating about the bush until he at last has evidence, and Stanley Holloway as his second, dutiful to the last. There are others also and precious details, the case about the cigar, the spectacular scenes at the fair and Hyde Park, and the towering thriller of the final settlement, almost reminding of "The Third Man" although being out in the open and in broad daylight. You feel the keen pen of Emeric Pressburger here in almost every detail, the famous partner of Michael Powell, who was the script writer of them and one of the best in film history. To all this comes the haunting melody of Mischa Spoliansky, a Russian composer who had to escape from Russia to Germany to later make his career in England with various film scores, but this could be his very best: actually reminding of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's "Capriccio Diabolico" from 1935, expertly performed by Andrès Segovia among others. In brief, this very noir British thriller contains everything you could wish for, while the almost Dostoyeskian psychology is its major treat.

How ironic that Eric Portman's opening volley should be an ill tempered retort to girlfriend, Dulcie Gray for leaving him HANGING about for an hour and a half. Her plausible explanation of a prolonged delay on the Tube failing to quell his ire.

Portman is Victor Colebrooke, a man not so much haunted, as fully immersed and entirely consumed by the spectre of his deceased father, a notorious hangman in the late Victorian era, for whom job satisfaction was off the scale, as he wallowed in the morbid pleasure of the ultra-brief working relationships he forged with his clients and a sadistic smugness at his prolific turnover. His infamy recognized by a waxwork on display at Madame Tussaud's chamber of horrors in his dishonour.

Any expectations of a murder mystery, whodunnit, or a final 'Cor, I never thought it were 'im!' are quickly dispelled and if you think for a moment that amorous, affable bus conductor, Derek Farr isn't quite the ticket, he immediately proves to be a fare minded all-round good guy.

No! 'Wanted for Murder' is a largely grim parable, offset by a couple of surprisingly comic moments, portraying Portman's inherent insanity and morbid passion for killing, targeting young women in London parks after dark, rendering them post dusk no-go areas in the process. Further, he taunts detective Roland Culver with postcards, not of the 'Weather beautiful, wish you were here' variety, but with chilling predictions of where he intends to strike next. Yet, between the lines lurks a cryptic cry for help and a veiled self-loathing.

'Wanted for Murder' plays out as a sombre depiction of a man imprisoned within himself, enduring a meltdown into murderous madness, and the brittle breakability of the 78 R. P. M. Record: Several smashed accidentally by a gramophone shop manageress and one deliberately in a fit of rage, by Portman. Was it on RCA, Victor?