The Painted Smile

Painted smile in usa... Murder can be deadly 1962

known as "painted smile" in the u.s., and "murder can be deadly" in some countries. A caper with a some suspense. Tom, engaged to be married, goes out on the town with his buddies, for one last fling. And of course, it all goes wrong for him. He picks up a girl, but when they go back to her place, someone has already been murdered. Now tom is being set up to take the rap. Over the river and through the woods. It's all pretty well done, but there just isn't much meat on the bones of the story here, compared to today's plots. How will he ever prove his innocence? And can he just stay alive before he gets bumped off too? Directed by lance comfort, who died young at 58. It's not bad. Moves right along. Some familiar faces; david hemming, a couple years before "blow up", which made his career skyrocket. Liz fraser, ken griffith, peter reynolds. Tony wickert has a pretty big role in this one, but only stuck around for six acting roles, and directed a few more.

There is something engaging about these B-movies and usually one or two points of interest. In this instance that comes from seeing Liz Fraser in a leading role. It would be labouring the point to say she is required to stretch her acting muscles here, and in fact she is required more to squeeze her gargantuan bosom into tight negligees, but I always welcome the chance to see one of Britain's comedy stalwarts in a straight role. In fact the film has a few faces who went on to better things, including an almost unrecognisable Griffith as the cheif villain and a fresh-faced Hemmings before he turned into the corpulent Ken Russell-lookalike he is today. There is also a chance to see Nanette Newman doing what in an early 1960s B-movie passed for acting; she is beautiful though.

As far as being an entry in the British crime genre is concerned the film is rather disappointing. The synopsis I had led me to believe the plot concerned rival gang bosses fighting over a girl. The truth is that gangsterism is used purely as a backdrop for a series of events which befall the student. In fact, despite Fraser's top billing, the film shifts its focus away from Jo Lake and settles on Tom, as soon as he gets the corpse into his car. In that way the film resembles not so much a gangster film, or even an underworld film, as what was called in the 1980s a 'yuppie nightmare' movie, in the manner of AFTER HOURS or SOMETHING WILD.

Despite the strides towards realism which had been made in the genre this film insists on using a very dated portrayal of crimelords. Kleinie is coded as anything but a macho figure: he has a club foot, has an effeminacy about him, is clearly not from the working classes, and conducts operations (about which we learn nothing) from an oak-panelled office lined with books. Furthermore he is played by Kenneth Griffith, not an actor noted for his physical presence or menace.

Having said all that the film does have its own charm and it is remarkable to think, at a time when film production here has slumped, that Britain once had such a thriving industry and produced second features, such as this, to support the main film.

It's only a regular B feature, but Lance Comfort had the knack for keeping even the shabbiest B plot interesting and fascinating. Of particular interest is the awkward scene of the discovery of the body, as Liz Fraser comes home with a drunken lad from her hooking club and gets that horrible phone call from 'Kleinie' who tells her to get rid of the rubbish in her bedroom. She has no idea what he is talking about and naturally gets curious, while her hooked visitor Tom follows her in and they stumble over a dead knifed body, while Tom in his besotted state grabs the knife and pulls it out, and that finishes the perfect set-up of awkwardness. All the rest is just mad chases for the truth, for the merry gentlemen at the pub where one of them got hooked by both the police and 'Kleinie's' hoodlums, and the rest will just be too obvious. One of Tom's merry companions at the club is a very young David Hemmings, while Kenneth Griffith as 'Kleinie' takes the prize in yet another of his uncanny characters of meticulous evil.

A plan to play the aggrieved husband bursting in act goes wrong, and instead a soon to be married man finds himself embroiled in a murder.

Despite a rather complex plot, this film is only about an hour long, it's an hour that you'd be well spent watching. Definitely a B Movie, so don't expect car chases or anything elaborate, just a solid mystery.

It's definitely a bit of a pot boiler, easy to imagine this shown before a main feature, but there are several plus points. Best element for me, is of course Liz Fraser, proving she's not just a pretty face, I can't actually recall seeing her cast as a similar character before, she's quite ruthless, it's a quality performance, she of course looks beautiful too, but her acting is the star element.

It's well paced, it's atmospheric, I really would recommend it, 7/10.

Liz Fraser seems to have been given a script meant for Diana Dors - an impression reinforced when she takes off her dress to reveal a black foundation garment. Rather too cute to be a convincing femme fatale, here she's rather improbably wed to Peter Reynolds.

Lance Comfort directs with style aided by regular cameraman Basil Emmott; while the cast includes an almost recognisably young Ray Smith and David Hemmings who display their aspirations to nonconformity by proposing a toast "To the Bomb!"

As the plot gets crazier and crazier (especially after a club-footed Kenneth Griffith shuffles in) you keep expecting Tony Wickert to wake up and discover It Was All a Dream, but the thing continues to the (very) bitter end.