The Delavine Affair

Just saw this on Talking Pictures channel (UK, old films and TV), and the critical reviews on here are rather unfair. Bear in mind what this was, a B feature, just over an hour long, and a small budget!

It tells a perfectly reasonable little story, though the time confines don't allow many choices for the actual villain?! The plot is worked out quite well, and you need to make allowances for how things were in the early 50s, but that shouldn't be so tricky.

One glaring plot error (?) has been mentioned, re taking a flash photo through a window, but then for decades we've seen press snappers taking an attempted pic through the windows of vans taking prisoners to and from courts -- don't they know better too??!!

And it was nice to see Blackman & Jackson taking their next steps up the acting ladder.

It starts with a murder, but soon news service man Peter Reynolds is on the track of an old jewelry heist, along with wife Honor Blackman in this tightly plotted second feature.

The most notable thing about this short British feature is that there seems to be nothing in it that doesn't lead inevitably to the matter at hand. The other is a rare appearance by Katie Johnson -- best remembered as the old lady later that year in the classic Ealing comedy THE LADYKILLERS. She won a BAFTA as Best Actress for that role. Born in 1878, Miss Price was on the stage by 1894, where she continued to perform at least until 1935. Her first screen role was in 1932, but she was cast almost exclusively in uncredited small roles for the first fifteen years. Then she had a marvelous 1955, made one more movie in 1957, and died that year.

When it looks like newspaper man "Rex Banner" (Peter Reynolds) is being framed for a murder, he and his wife "Maxine" (Honor Blackman) must try to find out just what happened and who might want to frame him! It's a rather messy detective yarn with one too many red herrings and some pretty mediocre writing. Blackman stands out but that isn't hard, and Gordon Jackson really ought to have read the script before he took the part of "Florian". Katie Johnson ("Miss Bissett") steals the show, but features way too infrequently to rescue this bog-standard afternoon feature from the well trodden path of sleuthing journalists with their glamorous assistants and a less than competent policeman.

Rex Banner, played by Peter Reynolds, is the proprietor of a news agency and having an eye for a good story, becomes an amateur sleuth to find out who murdered his friend Gospel Joe and as a consequence, who was responsible for the theft of the Delavine diamonds sometime earlier. Joe had information about the theft and had asked to see Rex but just as Rex finds his friends body the police arrive and he is initially treated as a suspect.

I found this film quite entertaining for a mid-1950s second feature with interesting characters, good acting, decent plot and a dash of humour. Peter Reynolds, who was often condemned to playing shifty villains in British films, is able and smooth in the role of detective, keeping several steps ahead of the clueless police. I have to say that any film with Honor Blackman, playing his delicious wife, will automatically get my vote. Bit-part spotters will be pleased to see two of Britain's most prolific here. Firstly Michael Balfour reprises for the umpteenth time the hero's sidekick, helping out with a spot of research for Rex and being on hand at the finale. Then the unsung Hal Osmond lifts an otherwise routine scene with a colourful cameo as the 'old man' with the cough. In my opinion THE DELAVINE AFFAIR is a slightly above average film for the genre.

I suppose the only notable thing about this thriller is members of the cast who would go on to better things.Katie Johnson would go on to win a BAFTA for her part in "The Ladykillers".Gordon Jackson would find fame as the butler in "Upstairs Downstairs" on television and Honor Blackman would of course find fame in both "The Avengers" on television and Pussy Galore in a Bond film.Here they are just marking time in an amiable but rather involved thriller which was beloved of writers of crime fiction in the 1950sIt was the sort of film where it is quite easy to work out by a process of elimination who is the killer.It is the sort of film that would be executed far more effectively on television which would of course eventually cause the death of films of this genre at least as B features.