Girl in the Headlines

There were thousands of this kind of topics, especially in the British film industry, and this one remains in the good ones, though there is nothing exceptional. You have to like this atmosphere, I don't, and Ian Hendry is as good as ever in the detective, inspector, role a police officer who has the habit to remove his shoes at home and in his office, behind his desk. The little charm of this kind of production. I would have enjoyed it if there had not been a mystery scheme. It is not 1.66 frame but 2.35. That's the way I saw it on my TV set. The last minute worth the whole suspense. Even less than last minute.

Inspector Ian Hendry and his sergeant, Ronald Fraser, are at the scene of a murder.A girl who makes her living as a model is dead in her apartment. Their investigation starts with her upstairs neighbor, a famous television actor, and continues slowly, from a painter with a rough marriage, to a gambling club, and eventually to the shady world of the drug trade.

It's a bit slow and ponderous over the course of its 90 minutes, and eventually the solution is pulled out at the last minute, quite unfairly for the mystery form. The major point of the movie is the contrast between Hendry's utterly normal home life and the dark and dismal world into which his investigations take him, leading eventually to a confrontation in a graveyard.

It's certainly well acted, with the reliable performer Fraser showing more flashes of wit than his rough appearance usually permitted him during his career. It's a worthwhile movie, until it fell to pieces for me at the very end.

This film has recently surfaced on Movies4Men.It is the sort of police drama that would be the support to some big American film at the Odeon or ABC.Ian hendry who stars in this ,should really have become a big star,but his career spiraled downward in the seventies mainly due to his drinking which eventually killed him at a very early age.I in fact saw him in a sorry state in a pub in Golders Green Road.The film is really a bit of a mess.There are too many suspects with lots of red herrings.the murderer is rather unlikely with no clues given as to the killers identity.The detectives always just get home when the phone rings and they have to go out again.You just wonder at the great overtime bills they must be clocking up.They literally plod around crime scenes picking up items willy nilly in a way that could easily wipe any prints.Clearly no SOCO at that time.Ronald Fraser plays the slightly comic detective.However i have to say that all this film induced in me was sleep.

A slow and fairly ordinary murder mystery story saved only by the appearance and great acting of Jeremy Brett who later in his career most excellently portrayed, Sherlock Holmes.

Unfortunately, missed the first half hour due to misguided decision to see first half of Watford v Brentford. (It won't happen again !) Wonderful and riveting film from the golden age of British noir - this must have been one of the first films Hendry did post Avengers. Portrayal of style and seediness very reminiscent of Raymond Chandler. Beautifully understated acting from Hendry - I wonder if Steve McQueen or Peter Yates saw this ? Would give extra star but for slightly annoying Jane Asher as needy middle class daughter !