Crossroads to Crime

When I hear that evocative theme music and the bust of Edgar Wallace I can imagine myself back in the circle of the AND Golders Green at around 430 on a Sunday afternoon.This film is one of dozens of B films made at Merton Park.The film gets off to an exciting start with a policeman hanging on for dear life to a Ford Zephyr travelling at around 40 miles per hour.After that it is all rather downbeat hill with a pedestrian plot and a rather laboured climax.Anthony Oliver plays the policeman who for some reason decides to try and get the gang on his own.Given a desperate release by Network by virtue of the director Gerry Anderson who went on to greater success with puppets.

Like most people, I had always assumed that 'Doppelgänger' (1969) constituted Gerry Anderson's sole attempt to break into live action features; but with 'Four Feather Falls' already behind him he not only produced but directed this very early Merton Park Edgar Wallace quickie (complete with regular composer Barry Gray on the soundtrack).

Standouts in the cast include a clean-shaven George Murcell as the chief heavy and a typically sardonic Miriam Karlin as a cafe proprietress.

Alun Falconer's script gets a bit talky during the middle section, but as usual with 'B' movies of this era it makes excellent use of locations and has a nice unexpected twist at the end...

It could have been a Danzigers Prod or even Butchers'Company, the most prolific movie productions in terms of crime B films in UK, during fifties and sixties. Most in black and white, very short, but unfortunately not always interesting, only seldom. This one makes no exception, the tale of an undercover beat cop in a predictable and boring story. But if you crave for this genre, no matter quality, but only atmosphere, OK, that's probably for you.