Also given the pedestrian title THE MODEL MURDER CASE, this British Neo Noir has a perfectly cast Ian Hendry with Ronald Fraser as cop partners (Inspector and Sergeant) with such terrific chemistry it's a shame there weren't more films, or perhaps a television series where GIRL IN THE HEADLINES would be a merely passable episode albeit filled with fantastic looking sets showcasing pallid wealth... in a mystery thriller that needed not only more thrills but far more action...
A shame too that the titular model, shown all through the opening credits and even the first several minutes (seated dead in someone else's living room), isn't credited anywhere...
Her character is quite something, making this a kind of LAURA where the corpse has a life all its own, albeit not through any flashbacks...
The suspects/her friends though are very similar: a group of big money lowlifes including a flamboyant TV star (James Villiers); a shady nightclub owner (Kieron Moore); a handsome sailor who could be trafficking drugs (Jeremy Brett); the girl's sullen mother (Margaret Johnston); and an even more sullen married couple...
Meanwhile Ian Hendry, who'd wind down his career playing cold-blooded villains, looks square-jawed classy here, befitting the stalwart lead whether in plush interior investigations with his quirky, even snoopier partner, or at home with pretty teenage daughter Jane Asher, whose mom (his wife) is more of a cool older sister...
Again, these primary leads all seem part of something else... bigger, more expanded... and it's too bad they're stuck in one single just-good-enough time-filling thriller...
Everyone... even the dead girl... deserved better: Like in HER case, an actual name!
