Flannelfoot

After some melodramatic title music, we open with that near obligatory scene of 1950s crime films, a woman singing in a nightclub to an audience of heavy smokers, in this case it's Diana Coupland in her film debut. In fact she lights one up herself as she goes into her rendition of 'fascinating man' It is post-war Berlin and Inspector Duggan (Ronald Adam), is apparently on the trail of a notorious black marketeer, who then makes an unsuccessful attempt on his life, seriously injuring him in the process.

We now switch to London, where Duggan, assisted by Detective-Sergeant Fitzgerald (Ronald Howard) is put on to the case of Flannelfoot, a ruthlessly successful burglar and jewel thief whom is believed to be connected with the events in Berlin, though Duggan claims he has lost his memory of much that happened there. Assisting the police is a newspaper proprietor and his ace crime reporter Frank Mitchell (Jack Watling). Attempts are made to trap the eponymous villain, but it is only after two murders and several more robberies that he is finally caught.

Though there was a notorious burglar in the 1930s known as Flannelfoot, whose sordid crimes took place far from the high society background depicted here, and the story is attributed to Ex-Inspector Jack Henry, it owes a great deal to authors Edgar Wallace and Francis Durbridge. A small-time cockney crook and informer (Graham Stark) is murdered right under the noses of the police and an outwardly respectable doctor is a fence of stolen jewels. There are shoals of Red Herrings, enabling the identity of the villain, 'a master of accents and disguise' and portrayed in classic stage fashion, wearing a slouch hat, dark glasses and muffler, to come as a satisfactory surprise. It all ends with a fight on a roof, a conclusion that director Maclean Rogers was so fond of that he used it in at least two other thrillers, PAUL TEMPLE RETURNS, and ASSIGNMENT REDHEAD, the latter incorporating footage of Ronald Adam by the ruins of the Berlin building. Like most of Rogers' films, FLANNELFOOT is silly at times, preposterous at others, but great entertainment for fans of British second features.

A host of suspects fail to enliven this British cheapie in which a police detective searches for the titular master criminal. Some familiar faces amongst the cast, but it's otherwise totally forgettable.

There are lots of interesting location shots in this film showing early fifties London, with the scars of bombing still apparent. 'Flannelfoot' is the name given to a jewel thief because he makes no sound with his feet as he slips in and out stealing priceless gems. No one knows who he is, except that he is 'one of us', i.e. of the smart set. There are lots of red herrings, some darker red than others, swimming around in this story, where we are kept guessing until the last. My goodness, the manners and mores of yesteryear! There is one hilarious shot where four men in white dress scarves and black overcoats, clearly men of fashion out on the town for an evening, say 'We had better not call attention to ourselves,' as they seek to investigate the mystery incognito and mix with ordinary folk. Calling Michael Arlen! But this film is amusing and worth watching for those interested in old British movies and what things were like back then.

The title suggests a comedy, but is actually the alias of an arch criminal who occasionally kills someone to keep things interesting; presumably inspired by Edgar Wallace's 'The Ringer', the most recent film version of which had hit cinemas the previous year.

Set mostly in the stately home of newspaper baron Lord Wrexford, in which people spend most of the film pedestrianly lined up by director Maclean Rogers discussing the case; Rogers occasionally showing a modicum of visual imagination when somebody else gets murdered (there's a remarkably graphic shot of a dead man with his eyes open), and in the prologue set in Berlin which begins with a close-up a very young Diana Coupland as a leggy nightclub singer languidly lighting up (less surprising than it at first sounds to those who know she later dubbed Ursula Andress's singing voice in 'Dr.No').

This is the sort of mystery film where there are more red herrings floating about than in the north sea.It is a complicated,not to say over plotted film.Probably more suited to the cinema than the TV.That is because if your attention is distracted for more than a few seconds then you loose the thread of the plot and it then takes you minutes to catch the thread again.This what happened to me whilst watching this film.I did not manage to guess who the guilty suspect was,so credit to the screenwriters on that point.unusual to see Graham Stark playing a crook,albeit a rather comical one.The film is really not better nor no worse than many similar thrillers that were being made at the same time.