The Case of Charles Peace

Norman Lee made only one more film before giving up directing films to become a novelist. Too bad, as he was on a roll after the war, as this little gem - which deserves to be much better known - attests.

Britain as usual felt itself to be experiencing a crime wave after the war, but violent crime was nothing new, as this Victorian melodrama amply demonstrates, in which a copper gets shot seventy years before 'The Blue Lamp'.

Poor old Sheffield always gets a raw deal from movies, and in recent years has unfairly been made to look an urban hell in 'Looks and Smiles' (1981) and 'The Full Monty' (1997); and although far less built-up during the 1870's is still depicted in this film as a den of vice and violent crime.

An interesting supporting cast including Chili Bouchier, Valentine Dyall and Hamilton Deane as the judge who sentences Peace to death is enhanced by the bold decision to resist the temptation to cast Tod Slaughter in the title role and instead give the lead to Michael Martin-Harvey - usually a bit player, but who absolutely makes the role his own: investing the part with a small stature, a deceptively mousy appearance, but an enormous personality.