One Jump Ahead

Reporter Paul Carpenter is pursuing a story about a corpse found in a bombed-out church, and children scared out of their wits on the site. He's also in a tentative relationship with fellow reporter Diane Hart, but still stuck on a former lover, Jill Adams. She married a rich man, but has a habit of dropping in at his apartment when her husband is out of town.

It's a decent but uninspiring second feature directed by Charles Saunders, shot on a series of cheap sets. By the three-quarters mark, it's clear who did it, although not why. Also some of the dialogue near the end is too formal and overwritten. Still the performances are pretty good. Carpenter would play a reporter with the same name -- albeit in a supporting role -- for the some production company the following year. His career, which included 52 movie credits over 16 years, would with his death in 1964 at age 42.

Paul Carpenter the Canadian actor who died early aged 42, appears here with another actor and ex-boxer who died early Freddy Mills, in another investigative role for his screen persona of Paul Banner, see also Behind the Headlines 1956.Whereas he is a reporter on The Daily Comet in One Jump Ahead, in the former film he is running his own news agency.Other reviewers have already explained the plot so I will confine myself to other matters.

Yes it was a mystery how Freddy Mills came to die with a shotgun by his side in a turning off Oxford Street in 1965 - a bigger mystery than this film!Was it suicide or a gangland killing?The cheeky schoolboy who appears at the beginning and barely escapes with his life, I remember seeing doing commercials on t.v. in the 1950s for Rowntrees Fruit Gums.As in Behind the Headlines with Hazel Court, Paul has a faithful and helpful British girlfriend who puts up with the rigours of his job.It was an adequate length of time approx 60 plus or so and would have constituted a B film back in the 1950s.It was an interesting enough film and I enjoyed seeing some old 1950s actors in British cast films again.I rated it 6/10.

While most of the cast of this film are now deceased, Paul Carpenter and Freddie Mills died shortly after the filming of this movie in mysterious circumstances.

Paul Carpenter, who plays Paul Banner in the movie was born in Canada before moving to England where he was a singer and actor. His cause of death was unclear but he was found dead in his dressing room on 12 June 1964 after a rehearsal. He had just recovered from injuries sustained in a car accident. He was 42 years old.

Freddie Mills, who plays Bert Tarrant in the movie died of gunshot wounds on 25 July 1965 which authorities deemed to be self inflicted, however many people believed he was murdered. He was 46 years old.

I do remember Paul Carpenter,star of this film.A Showbiz football team were playing a charity match at Finchley F C on a Sunday.Carpenter was giving a commentary over the rabbit till the residents complained and he was silenced.Here he stars in a typical fifties crime film.With his American accent he was a cheap substitute for the usual fading American star.The film starts quite well but runs out of ideas early on,particularly with his romantic entanglements.The only other point of interest is the appearance of ex world champion boxer Freddie Mills.Quite apart from his death in mysterious circumstances it is also believed that he was a serial murderer.

An innocent boy larking about near a spookily deserted church witnesses a murder, and then finds himself the very next victim of the callous, cold-hearted killer, desperate to cover their bloody tracks! Capable director Charles Saunders's limber, far-from lugubrious crime thriller is a tautly written, sprightly little British-made B-Picture with more than enough shadowy intrigue to blissfully envelop ardent thriller fans within its dark and desperate mysteries, and stalwart, quick-quipping, street savvy journalist Paul Banner (Paul Carpenter ) makes for an engaging, stoically sleuthing hero, one not only after the plaudits gleaned from breaking a major story, but morally driven to bring this nefarious, cold-hearted murderer to book. Charles Saunders's 'One Jump Ahead' remains an exciting yarn that always keeps it's dark secrets one jump ahead of the viewer, and I greatly enjoyed the knock-about scene with the charismatic hard nut Freddie Mills!