Assignment Redhead

This was a slightly more ambitious project than usual from the Butcher's company, with the budget stretching to hire two American stars. Richard Denning is Major Keen, seconded to MI5 from US military intelligence; not something he shows a great deal of as he blunders about, arresting the wrong man. Informed of the activities of the arch villain Dumetrius, he responds "sounds like a lot of nonsense to me", which is a fair summary of the narrative. Carole Mathews, soon after her labours in Roger Corman's SWAMP WOMEN, provides the glamour as the enigmatic Hedy, and redhead or not she still looks pretty good. One memorable scene has her trying to cope with a large accordion, in what must be London's smallest ever nightclub. Ronald Adam, playing Dumetrius was notable for his incredibly full and busy life, fighting in both World Wars, including being shot down while on active duty in the Royal Flying Corps in the First, as well as later founding theatrical groups and appearing in hundreds of stage plays, films and TV productions. He brings his customary authority to the role, but hardly suggests the kind of cosmopolitan, chameleon like character indicated by the script.

Director Maclean Rogers wrote the screenplay after adapting Lindsay Hardy's 'Requiem for a Redhead' perhaps unwisely lifting whole chunks of dialogue from the book in the process. It appears from the gaps and inconsistencies in the second half of the film that he then found himself tearing pages of it up again. Peter Ridgeway and his pal in the bowler with the monster hangover, Digby Mitchel, are built up then dropped suddenly, while Peter Swanwick's Paul Bonnet, straight from the 'Allo 'Allo school of Frenchmen appears from nowhere but is intimately acquainted with everything that's gone on. Alex Gallier gives an enjoyable performance in a small role as a smooth ex-Nazi whom Dumetrius intends to double-cross. The conclusion, a fight to the death on the roof of a burning building, is an almost identical copy of the ending of Rogers' PAUL TEMPLE RETURNS, made almost five years earlier, including some of the same footage, dialogue and music.

This used to turn up on TV quite often and I've long had something of a soft spot for it, in spite of, or perhaps because, of its ham-fisted approach and lumbering fight scenes. It has all the flaws and pleasures of many other British second features of the period; you either like them or you don't.

It is so amusing that in the 1940s and 1950s, redheaded actresses were the subject of boasting by film companies, even in film titles like this one, despite the fact that the films were all in black and white so that you could not possibly tell that they were redheaded at all. Rhonda Fleming and Rita Hayworth were talked about in this way long before anymore saw their hair in colour. We can only presume that Carole Mathews, who plays the redheaded mystery woman in this film, really was a redhead, as there is no way to tell. She appears still to be alive aged 92, having retired as an actress as long ago as 1978, after making 92 films (one for each year of her life so far). She was Miss Chicago in 1938 but had already appeared as an uncredited dancer in two films before that. Much better known is the square-jawed hero of this film, Richard Denning, who appeared in 113 films. Despite having some American actors, this is a British 'B' picture about postwar intrigue in London when there are still Nazis about, who are up to their usual mischief. I regret to say that the film is bland and mediocre. The Cold War is strangely absent from the plot. There are some fascinating location shots of London Airport as it was in 1956, showing the exterior of the BEA (British European Airways) passenger terminal as little more than a shed! It is always interesting to watch the location filming of London during this period, whatever silly story is going on. The director of this tepid tale is Maclean Rogers, who did three of the Paul Temple films, and indeed managed to direct 87 films before he retired in 1960, none of them notable. This film is neither good nor bad, it is just a B movie and that's all. It is watchable in an unengaging way, and that's all one can say really.

Butcher's Film Productions made a mixed bag of films for sure but ASSIGNMENT REDHEAD has to be one of their very worst. It's a sloppily made post-war thriller with bad editing and a generally dull murder mystery storyline that never seems to go anywhere despite the intriguing storyline. In it, the authorities are hunting for a master criminal who they know was travelling on a particular plane. They have a cast of suspects to choose from, but which of them is it?

The format of the film is of a stodgy police procedural with little incident or action to recommend it, and when the action does hit it's very uninteresting. It doesn't help that few of the British cast members are up to the job of putting on a convincing European accent, and there's a romantic sub-plot that drags things down still further. Although I consider myself a fan of Butcher's Films I think this is their worst yet.

Ronald Adams, criminal extraordinaire, makes a nice living in counterfeit money and passports. To confuse American intelligence man Richard Deming -- apparently Great Britain has none of their own -- he kills one man and frames Hugh Moxey. While Deming is haring after the accused guy, he falls in love with shady Carole Matthews, while Moxey and his girlfriend investigate. Meanwhile, Adams is on the track of $12,000,000 in counterfeit money.

The nice thing about seeing Maclean Rogers as writer-director of this Butchers movie is you can watch it with your expectations set low. With that in mind, it's a decent enough flick, if you aren't distracted by all the misplaced accents. The plot is nicely tangled, so much that half the dialogue seems to be people explaining to others things they already know. Still, an adequate time-waster, which is what you hope for with Rogers.

....They certainly weren't wrong when they said that.

It made me think of that hilarious quote, snooker on black and white TV, where's the yellow? It's behind the green and next to the pink.... who was the redhead? Slightly interesting marketing.

It's not a classic, it screams b movie in terms of budget, acting, cast, sadly the story isn't even that good.

The story is dreary, but ambitious, it doesn't show the British or American services in a good light, they're all a little on the dim side.

Richard Denning looks the part, and delivers arguably a good performance, the trouble is that he's working with a very poor script, it's clunky and disjointed, the dialogue lacks any sort of life.

Carole Mathews, I didn't think was great, at times she sounds Spanish, sometimes Dutch, and other times she sounds like Miss Popov from Rentaghost.

It has a certain charm, one I find applies to many movies and shows from this era, so if you enjoy the atmosphere, clothes, cars, dodgy fight scenes, you'll possibly find this passable. 5/10.