Assignment Redhead

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.

... but wasn't. If the Walmington-on-Sea Amateur Dramatic Society had been given a postal order for four pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence and invited to write, shoot and act out a film about Nazi contraband, the good burghers of Walmington would have come up with something slicker and more sophisticated than this.

Gregory Keen is a handsome American intelligence officer seconded to the British secret service in the wake of World War Two and the Berlin Blockade. His task is to thwart the nefarious plans of dastardly supercrook Dumetrius, "a man who's butchered his way half across Europe - and whom it's up to you to get!" (Yes, that really is quoted from the script.)

This awful British film of the Austerity period defines the term "amateurish". Clumsy fight scenes, un-scary bad guys like the cuddly Yotti Blum (Danny Green), a French secret agent with a crazy accent swanning around London wearing an inconspicuous beret, dreadful lines such as "You unclean cretin!" - need I go on?

The action, written and directed by someone called Maclean Rogers, is full from start to finish of absurd improbabilities. For the assassination attempt, why would the decrepit sexuagenarian Dumetrius (Ronald Adam) climb onto a rooftop with a rifle? Doesn't he have henchmen for that sort of thing? And how did he know that his 'target' would appear at this very window? In the warehouse denouement, how come the smoke doesn't move when the camera pans? It couldn't possibly be a cheaply overlaid special effect, could it? How come Rubinstein can give up half his fortune, which he protected from the rapacioua Nazis, with as much equanimity as if he were handing over a box of matches?

Coutts describes Dumetrius in one of the script's many indigestible mouthfuls as "cunning, ruthless, completely unscrupulous and will stop at nothing". One cannot help but wish that at least some of the bad guy's demonic energy had infused a few of the other people involved in this project. Nothing whatsoever in this feeble farrago comes close to being convincing. The appearance of Dumetrius, in disguise, on a routine military flight out of Berlin is plain ludicrous (wouldn't there be just the slightest risk that someone might KNOW the British officer he's trying to impersonate?), but no more ludicrous than the presence on the same flight of Hedy Bergner (Carole Matthews), the allegedly glamorous accordion player, journeying to London to play a single gig at a night club. Putting aside the universally-held view that the last time the accordion was a cool instrument was NEVER, what is she doing on a military transport? Was the accordion in so much demand in 1956? Wasn't Jimmy Shand available? And did she obtain that coiffure by letting the regimental goat chew her hair? Marzatti's is as trashy and unbelievable as one might expect - a night club depicted by someone who's never been to a night club, for an audience that has never been to one either. Why isn't Sally Jennings fazed when the strange man grabs her in the dark?

Richard Denning plays Keen, a phenomenon all too common in British films of the era - a token American, brought in to add "class". Well, compared to the rest of the movie, perhaps he succeeds. Such things are relative.

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.

....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.

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.