Deadly Record

The police are surprisingly short with hero Lee Patterson as he tries to find out who really murdered his wife and almost everybody else except nice Barbara Shelley is also rather refreshingly grumpy in this acerbic little thriller, including Patterson himself ("I'm tired of being number one suspect in this thing. It's not funny").

With the vogue for ever more epic and spectacular productions in the Fifties, in the struggle to draw the audience away from the goggle-box, less time was available for the humbler supporting feature, with many, like this, now lasting barely an hour. It is the work of Independent Artists, whose founder, Julian Wintle, and some of its personnel, notably the director Sydney Hayers, were to later make some of the best episodes of The Avengers; their 'B' pictures were some of the classier of the period, employing first class casts.

Canadian, Lee Patterson, who starred in at least a dozen British 'B's between 1957 and 1960, gives one of his stronger performances as an airline pilot, with a marriage on the rocks, who becomes chief suspect in his wife's murder. The police in the person of Geoffrey Keen, as authoritative as ever, are pretty sure of his guilt, so it's a race against time to find the real killer. Among the associates of his former wife are a theatrical impresario, played by John Paul, famous around the time for his role in the popular soap 'Emergency Ward Ten' Ferdy Mayne as a professional stage dancer, and her lover, a doctor, Peter Dyneley, whose real-life wife Jane Hylton also appears as his receptionist. She would go on to co-star in CIRCUS OF HORRORS for the same company, straight after this. Barbara Shelley is sympathetic as the mutual friend of Patterson and his late wife, who offers him her support. All are capably directed by the veteran Lawrence Huntington, who ensures the hardly original plot runs swiftly and smoothly. Nothing out of the ordinary, but worth watching.

Airline pilot Lee Patterson ('The Counterfeit Plan', 'The Good Die Young') comes back home to an empty house, and judging by the milk bottles left by their front door, she's been away for a few days. Not thinking too much of it, he goes to bed. The next morning he's woken up early by a cop, who claims his car had been in an accident that night. Patterson says it must've been his wife, and the cop asks to see the garage, where they find the dented car, to Patterson's surprise. Even worse, they find his wife murdered with a knife in her back in her studio. Of course that puts Patterson at the top of police inspector Geoffrey Keen's ('Portrait Of Alison', several Bond movies) list of suspects, esp after it's revealed the marriage was anything but happy and she had had her fair share of affairs. By marrying Patterson, she had put a promising dancing career on hold, which caused tension. Together with family friend and airline hostess (and British scream queen) Barbara Shelley, Patterson tries to reconstruct his wife's last days to find the real killer.

At less than an hour, the movie flies by. Director (and co-writer of the screenplay) Lawrence Huntington ('The Upturned Glass') keeps things moving at a rapid pace, but can't hide the plot holes and conveniences in the storyline. Which I could've forgiven more easily had the movie looked killer, but unfortunately DoP Eric Cross ('Hunted') gives the movie a TV-like appearance, keeping the rich shadows only for the finale. Maybe that's because while it was shown as a second feature in the UK, it aired almost immediately after release on US television as part of 'Kraft Mystery Theater'. In any case, the lack of interesting visuals doesn't exactly help this movie. It's got some decent performances and does the job, but with its sloppy story and unimaginative direction and lighting, it's hard to recommend this one. 6/10

Lee Patterson, playing an airline pilot, in an unhappy marriage, gets driven home by a beautiful airline hostess. He goes straight to bed, only to be woken up the following morning by a police officer who asks him about the whereabouts of his wife's dented car, the result of a car accident, and more importantly, where his wife could be located. Patterson denies that his wife had returned to the house in the car. However, the police officer is not convinced, and so checks the garage and finds the dented car, and then a moment later, her dead body in the studio with a knife sticking in her back. When later questioned by a police superintendent, Patterson admits that the knife that the killer used was something he had bought for his wife as a honeymoon gift! In all honesty, what happens next is incredible. Instead of being taken down to the police station for further questioning, and being 'grilled' in the process, he's advised not to go too far from the house without informing the police! I can't see that happening in New York, or come to that matter, anywhere! Patterson then decides to act the sleuth and track down the killer of his wife, while the police appear to do sweet nothing! Geoffrey Keen puts in his usual competent performance as the police superintendent but his limited time on the screen gives him no more than what is essentially a cameo role. Indeed, the only interview he conducts is with Patterson's 'daily help' to ascertain whether Patterson was on good terms with his murdered wife! After that, the police become more or less become redundant in the murder inquiry. Although Patterson does a reasonable job as the husband, who is determined to clear his name by finding his wife's killer, we never see any depth to his character, hence it never becomes a gripping drama. But the real problem is with a storyline which defies belief.

This is a familiar story line but done in a pleasing way. Lee Patterson plays an air-plane pilot with a wife who likes to party. She's found dead with a knife in her back. The police find her dead at the couple's home after Patterson has insisted she isn't there. This of course means he becomes the top suspect. The coincidences and evidence stack up against him. Are the police clever enough to look past Patterson as the obvious killer? He doesn't wait around to find out and begins to hunt down many of his wife's male friends. Perhaps one of them is the killer?

The cast is pleasing and as the previous review stated, Patterson gives one of his better performances. Barbara Shelley co-stars and she always adds a little class to the proceedings.