Meet Mr. Malcolm

When Sarah Lawson's wealthy employer disappears, she turns for help in locating him to her estranged husband, mystery writer Richard Gale.

The police butt in quickly, of course, but mostly because someone we don't see has been murdered. Not only does the logic of the characters escape me, bt so does the way this movie is produced. Likely many cheap British quota quickies, it's shot cheaply on poorly decorated sets. Because it's almost entirely talk, it's shot mostly in medium two-shot, occasionally varied by having a third person present, or pausing for a poorly lit location shot of a patch of dirt at night. Gale and Miss Lawson wander about, accumulating clues, while the police are hard at work, mostly Superintendent Duncan Lamont chatting with his sergeant Nigel Green in a mostly bare set which, I believe, is meant to stand in for a precinct office.

There is a brief encounter with the local drunken half-wit, played by Claude Dampier; Dampier, a comic who was often billed as 'The Perfect Idiot'. Whether his appearance here is meant to prove the accuracy of that billing or to demonstrate a sense of irony is left as a problem for someone who cares.

While it's commendable of those wonderful people at Odeon Entertainment Group to revive these British B-movies in such pristine editions there should be some critical yardstick to determine that not just any-old-rope gets plonked onto what appears an exciting double bill, at least on the face of it.This is paired with I'm a Stranger, also made at Viking Studios in Kensington before it became a TV studio. Watching these films is akin to listening to the radio, only it happens to be filmed, mainly on the one set - a not very exciting house - and a bit of greenery. Usually reliable actors, such as Nigel Green, are wasted in stock rustic-cop roles. There's a couple who seem to be breaking up but are still in love with each other; the murder of people we don't care about; and lots of talk talk talk but little humour or excitement. It's only 65 minutes but feels like much longer. This is exactly the kind of fodder that gives British cinema of that period a bad name. I'm a Stranger has Greta Gynt playing herself, laughably delaying an important meeting with a Hollywood producer who has offered her £250,000 (in 1952 money) in order to stay in a house to find out who will inherit from a missing will, and has practically nothing to do for two thirds of the film except sit there trying to look interested. James Hayter livens things up in the first twenty minutes, and the 'slithery' Charles Lloyd Pack takes up the slack, if you'll pardon the rhyme, for the rest of the film, but it's still far from rewarding. Even die-hard Brit movie buffs will be hard put to sit through this pair of turkeys.

If this were a crime novel of recent years it would be classed as what the trade calls a 'cosy' An author separated from his wife is called into help when her boss disappears prior to being found murdered. Will the film end with the pair back in each others arms? If you can work that one out you shouldn't find it much more difficult to guess whodunit, not that there's any connection. It all passes an hour or so quite pleasantly if you like British 'B's from this era as I do. Sarah Lawson speaks very pleasantly but rather softly and the soundtrack doesn't pick up every word she says. I would guess the title was suggested by the commercial success of Meet Mr Callaghan released shortly before.