Dr. Morelle: The Case of the Missing Heiress

Another episode of the "House of Hammer" Podcast and we're still in the 1940's and with yet another adaptation of a successful radio series. This time, Dr Morelle, a fairly thin facsimile of Sherlock Holmes, but one who is blunt to the point of rude. The film is a relatively strange who dunnit (or perhaps how dunnit would be better).

Cynthia Mason (Jean Lodge) goes missing under mysterious circumstances. An old school friend, Miss Frayle (Julia Lang) comes to investigate. Having found evidence of foul play, Miss Frayle brings in her employer, Dr Morelle (Valentine Myall) a skilled sleuth who gets to the extraordinary bottom of this unlikely mystery.

There are two main problems with "Dr Morelle". The first is that the film is too long. Even at just 74 minutes it's around twice the length that the story should take. There are some interesting beats to the story, but they are padded beyond tolerance, and I kept finding that I had to force myself to refocus on the film. The second is that, by todays standards, but I'd assume from the fact that there aren't any more "Dr Morelle" films, the audience of the times too, Doctor Morelle himself is far too harsh a character, berating poor Miss Frayle (and indeed the rest of the characters) with an unlikeable superiority.

There are a few small positives, there's some fun to be had (if you're of a certain age) by the suiter in the story being called Peter Lorimer. I was genuinely surprised that the ending wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be. Unfortunately, there's far too much wading through the mud and listening to a jackass to make it a worthwhile experience overall.

The popular detective Dr. Morelle played by Valentine Dyall is our protagonist who stars in the Case Of The Missing Heiress. The story is told in flashback and in this case a bad idea because we know that the good doctor's assistant Julia Lang has had no harm befall her. Not good especially for those not familiar with the character on British radio who knows that she would have to be back for next week's episode.

Morelle fancies himself Sherlock Holmes and he has the weapon of hypnotism at his command unlike Holmes. He also has Lang as a faithful scribe of his adventures, but Watson would have walked out if Holmes had ever treated him the way that Morelle treats Lang.

In any event Lang gets a call for help from an old friend who is being kept prisoner by her stepfather and unable to see her boyfriend. The friend stands to inherit a considerable fortune, but the friend after making the call disappears. Stepfather Phillip Leamer doesn't want publicity and neither does boyfriend Peter Drury.

We find out that the butler didn't do it when butler Hugh Griffith turns up dead as well and a frantic Lang calls Dyall for help. Of course when he comes to Devonshire where the spooky estate of Leamer is located, he solves the whole mess.

Griffith is best in the cast with his performance of a slightly daft butler who walks an imaginary dog. But the film itself looks like it was slapped together rather quickly no doubt to take advantage of the radio show's popularity.

Often called the "British Vincent Price," Americans have heard Valentine Dyall, even if his name and face are unfamiliar. His voice was used in countless films, TV and radio programs where his face (though handsome) was not seen.

Dyall's starring role as the hypnotist, Dr. Morelle, is the main reason to see "Dr. Morelle: The Case of the Missing Heiress." The plot is unexceptional, and the acting of most everyone else rather pedestrian. One exception is Hugh Griffith, (ten years before he won a Best Supporting Oscar for "Ben-Hur"), as the daft butler, Bensall.

Greedy, wheelchair-bound Samuel Kimber (Philip Leaver) wants to bump off his stepdaughter, Cynthia (Jean Lodge) to gain her inheritance. She wants to marry a struggling young author, escape the clutches of her stepfather and keep her money.

Heiress disappears between the old manor house she inhabits with her stepfather and Bensall and the author's humble cottage.

And the story takes off from there. Dr. Morelle's secretary, the aptly named Miss Frayle (Julia Lang), infiltrates the old dark house to see what she can find out about the disappearance of her friend.

Along the way, she makes an unlikely ally whose untimely demise hampers her effort to solve the mystery. Meanwhile, Dr. Morelle assumes several names and identities as he tries to ferret out the truth from Mr. Kimber and the young author.

Everything is wrapped up neatly in just over an hour, with a predictable ending arrived at by slightly unconventional means.

I've already given "The Case of the Missing Heiress" more cyber ink than it warrants, but there is something that sets this fairly ordinary late-40s Hammer thriller apart, and that is the commanding presence of Valentine Dyall.

The London-born Dyall (1908-1985) conquered every medium in his nearly fifty-year career: stage, film, TV and especially radio where his mellifluous voice was most famously heard in Britain in the 1940s as the star of "The Man In Black." Dyall's voice was heard much later in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" as that of Deep Thought.

In between there were a lot of spears to be carried, manors to be lorded over, and dead bodies for the trench-coated Mr. Dyall to hunch over. If his work in this unprepossessing little film is any indication of the overall quality of his work, I'm apt to look for his name in credits from now on.

Julia Lang discovers that her friend, heiress Jean Lodge has gone missing. She goes to investigate at the charmingly named Barren Tor in Devonshire, disguising herself as the new housemaid. There she finds Miss Lodge's wheelchair-bound stepfather, a creepy butler, and a stalwart young fiance. Finding herself out of her depth, she calls her regular employer, psychiatrist Valentine Dyall for aid.

It's another of the movie adaptations of BBC radio programs that Hammer tried in the late 1940s. This one is based on a series written by Ernest Dudley. It was a long-running series, initially starring Dennis Arundell. In the 1950s, the role was taken by Cecil Parker. There were also short stories, and even a stage play.

THe movie itself is a stereotyped potboiler, distinguished only by Dyall's characterization as the annoyingly perceptive Morelle.

Although this is a rather threadbare effort it does have a fairly entertaining and well thought out ending.The voice of Valentine Dyall permeates the whole film giving the clue to the film's origins.At that time many BBC radio programmes were being turned into films,often with unlikely titles such as The 20 Questions Murder Mystery.I have to say that I cannot remember a similar climax when the tables were so neatly turned on the murderer with no less than two further twists giving a very neat and ingenious ending>Too often endings seemed contrived and unsatisfactory ,but such concerns definitely do not apply to this thriller.