Soho quartier dangereux

A sort of British version of 711 OCEAN DRIVE has a young naïve tech expert hired to wire up a horse race betting scheme so the villains can get the inside tip straight from the bookie's mouth...

Yet it begins like a boxing noir since the lanky and passive Canadian import Lee Patterson is a wannabe prizefighter set with a girl-next-door girlfriend, daughter of a trainer and his fighter son... the latter killed by a no-good hood played by Bernard Fox before his signature mustache made him an endearing magical character-actor...

His gruff character here breaking SPIN A DARK WEB into two parts: one has our hero sent by plan-plotting criminals Martin Benson and Robert Arden to pay or catch or maybe even kill hideaway Fox while working out the aforementioned con...

And there needed more of the first as the sting is too complicated while the best scenes, traipsing in and out of actual London streets/locales, clash with phony-looking rear-projection driving scenes... thankfully there's less of the latter...

And like all Film Noirs it's a sexy femme fatale who makes our blank-slate boy turn savage-sappy while he neglects the good gal who had him first... but she isn't very attractive, or interesting... and token wildcard Faith Domergue doesn't have enough time to SPIN that DARK titular WEB with all those literal wires getting crossed and uncrossed, again and again.

This was an interesting little British crime film that starred both an American actress and a Canadian actor, which I guess was common at the time.

The story is about Canadian Jim Bankley who while training at a British boxing gym owned by Tom Walker he befriends Tom's two children, Bill and Betty. Bill is a promising boxer at the ring and unbeknownst to Jim is asked by a local mobster to take a dive in the ring which he doesn't do.

Meanwhile Jim who hasn't been successful is looking for work and his fellow Canadian, Buddy. He finds Buddy who gets him a job with his employer the local mobster Rico Francesi...only it's not really Buddy or Rico that gets Jim hired, it's Rico's sister Bella. Bella takes a shine to Jim and wants him moved up the paces.

Bottom-line is Jim is a good guy (I.e. He may be ok with tapping phone lines to fix betting on horses at the track, but he is not ok with murder), so when Bill ends up dead at the hands of one of Rico's goons and Jim finds out about it he wants out. Only then does he discover how blood thirsty Bella really is.

Good action, interesting story...but the best part of this film is really the 1950's sidewalk/street scenes in England...fresh market, neon signs, liquor store, etc. GGreat, great footage and for me the best part of this film. A noir buff might enjoy this film..and those with curiosity like me.

I remember Lee Patterson from One Life to Live, but I never thought of him as a hunk. Boy was I wrong.

I also didn't realize he had a decent B movie career. In this British film, Spin a Dark Web, he is hired by a gangster and falls for his sister (Faith Domergue).

When a friend's son is killed by a member of said gangster's group, everyone denies the guy worked for Pattersin's current employer. He soon realizes he's working for a bottom feeder.

As the femme fatale, Faith Domergue manages to making a biting role into not much. The character is evil, actually more evil than her brother, but for me she just didn't give the role much gumption. I would have loved seeing Anne Baxter in this role.

Yesterday I complained about people walking around Italy speaking English with Italian accents because since they are really speaking Italian, no accent is needed.

Today I will complain because Domergue is from Sicily, and as a Sicilian speaking English, she should have an accent - like her brother has.

It's just okay.

A boxer fails to take a dive as promised. Fight promoter Martin Benson sends Lee Patterson to warn him --nicely. The fighter knocks Patterson down, who kills him in reply. Now Patterson is on the run, and wants Benson to protect him.... and he knows all the angles.

It's a nice, dirty little movie, well directed by Vernon Sewall, with an unusual take on the sort of dirty boxing promoters who look upon the whole operation as the entertainment business, and who want things to run smoothly. I can't help but think it's all a metaphor for the movie business under the Studio System, with the managers trying to run a nicely packaged system, and the talent they so depend on always bollixing things up, leaving the bosses to fix things without anyone getting hurt. Anyone else, that is. There are some nice performances by Faith Domergue as Benson's bloodthirsty wife, and some familiar performers, like Sam Kydd amd Bernard Fox (in his screen debut), further down the cast list.

In the 1950s-60s, many American actors went to Europe to star in various films. Perhaps the studios saw it as a way to draw in more people to see the films...perhaps it was to satisfy investors that they had a big name for the leads. Regardless, hundreds of films were made with various A and B-list Americans. "Soho Incident" is unusual in that it does star one American (Faith Domergue) but also a Canadian (Lee Patterson). And, while I loved Domergue in the film (she was a great femme fatale), she and her brother in the film were lousy choices for the movie. Why? Because Martin Benson played an Italian guy and Domergue his sister. So why did he sound VERY Italian and she sounded just like an American? Despite this dumb casting choice, "Soho Incident" is a dandy crime film...one well worth seeing.

The story finds Jim (Patterson) working as a boxer but going no where. So he decides to go for fast and easy money by going to work for Mr. Francesi, a gambler with a dubious reputation. Much of this is because Francesi's sister (Domergue) is infatuated with him. Soon he makes himself very useful doing various shady things, but he isn't willing to hurt anyone...which is a problem since his boss isn't above murder. And, when Jim sees him kill a fellow crook, he's had enough and wants out. But it isn't Mr. Francesi he has to worry about but his demon-like sister....she'll stop at nothing to destroy Jim and she takes his leaving VERY personally.

You just have to see the awful things the sister does in this one....she is the ultimate femme fatale. I'll say no more....just see it and be amazed. Fine writing that avoids the usual clichés is why I particularly liked this one.