Meet Simon Cherry

Simon Cherry is a Church of England clergyman in the Docklands, known for his friendly manner to the locals and to the police for helping to solve crimes. He is in need of a vacation, so a friend lends him a clunker of a car. He drives and drives through the countryside of England until it breaks down during a storm. He takes refuge in the home of local lady Courtney Hope. He tries calling the local garage, but the lines are down, so he accepts the hospitality of the house, meets everyone except Zena Marshall, who is bedridden. That night, Miss Marshall dies. Is it murder?

Like other early Hammer films, it's based on a popular BBC radio show of the period, "Meet the Rev". Apparently the Reverend Mr. Cherry is a sort of cut-rate Father Brown. He gets involved in local murders and helps sort the situation, ending with a pious moral, as here.

The script, with a credit for the show's writer, Gale Pedrick, shows its origins with a voice-over near the beginning and an awful lot of talk, a bit more than is cinematic. Still, the players deal well enough with the script. If there are few big moments, it's a nice conceit to show various scenes from the characters' points of view. It's a decent enough programmer, although not good enough to make another movie.