Murder in Eden

One of several British 'B's to be filmed at Ireland's Ardmore studios around the turn of the Sixties, featuring an early leading film role for outstanding character actor Ray McAnally, with estimable contemporary Norman Rodway among the supporting cast. I had the art forger and murderer figured out pretty early on, but was still thrown by one twist toward the end, and it was worth watching. Can only echo the comment that it would have been better had the lovely Yvonne Buckingham been leading lady.

After he denounces a valuable painting as a fraud, art critic Max Aaronson is killed in a bit and run accident, but who possibly could have done it?

Better than I was expecting, definitely better than some of the comments would suggest, it's a very pleasing mystery, one with a couple of decent twists and turns.

There's a good scuttle at the end, with some decent looking fisticuffs, not always a success at this point in time, but they work here.

If you're a fan of all things 1960's, like I am, then there'll be something here for you, even if the story isn't quite your thing, you'll enjoy the fashions, styles, music and of course Genevieve's fabulous bubble car.

Solid performances throughout, everyone plays their part well, Genevieve was a cracking character.

7/10.

Art expert Robert Lepler tells gallery owner Mark Singleton that the old master he is about to deliver is a fine forgery. Someone switched it for the real one after Lepler authenticated it. He's working on a book on forgeries. He also tells Singleton that the latest painting he is touting is a forgery. Singleton pulls it, but Lepler dies in a hit-and-run, just as French journalist Catherine Feller shows up to interview him; she finds Inspector Ray McAnally crossing her path, as well as oil magnate and collector Jack Aranson, and restorer Michael Lucas.

It's a nice little script, fairly ambitious in its coverage of the hothouse world of art collection for a B movie, and always threatening to turn farcical when Miss Feller and McAnally cross paths. While director Max Vanel is good at covering the story and the visuals, the accents come and go, and a lot of the actors speak Received Pronunciation with what sounds to me like an Irish lilt. Some very smelly red herrings get dragged along the path, and it's a fair, although not too challenging mystery.

When an acclaimed art critic announces that a famous painting adoring an Irish gallery is a forgery, it's owner "Arnold Woolf" (Mark Singleton) is outraged. Shortly afterwards, said critic has come a cropper in a car accident and it falls to "Insp. Sharkey" (Ray McAnally) to get to the bottom of the accident, a theft and a fraud. Add to the mix the presence of the chic "Geneviève" (Catherine Feller) who potters around in her tiny bubble car and we have just about enough ingredients to make this crime drama entirely... forgettable. Indeed, aside from some rather jaunty accordion music the whole thing is curiously dull. McAnally exudes no screen presence at all (on the basis of this rather lacklustre effort you would never had had him succeed in later life). The story is pretty pedestrian - though there is maybe the merest hint of a twist at the end - and though prettily enough shot leaves little to remember.

"Murder in Eden" (1961) is a very minor British crime drama about art forgery and art theft, something I've seen done much better, but, admittedly, so many times before that this version of the same ol' same ol' has me stymied as to being creative enough to write a review that's worthy of it. It's not a bad drama at all. At only 63 minutes it doesn't wear itself out, although my wife was getting antsy and wishing it were over so she could watch re-runs of "The Big Bang Theory". That probably says enough. Oh, Norman Rodway's in it, so that makes it worth the watch. It actually stars Ray McAnally and Catherine Feller. Feller's in it far too much, and, I'm very sorry to say, we noticed her overbite far more than her acting. McAnally, who ended up a great character actor in England, is very good, but his charisma in this for some reason tries to hide behind shadows and can't be seen very often. Such ghostly presence isn't conducive to promoting star material. Rather, it hides it like a star in the sky's hidden during the day by the sun. Here, the sun was hidden too. After all, this was black and white, and the two mixed together makes grey - my overall view of the film. One last thing, Yvonne Buckingham's in it. If she'd just traded places with Catherine Feller... But then, coulda, shoulda...it woulda...