Blackout

I loved the St. Louis Blues jazz intro of this British noir, sung by Cleo Laine it sets the mood in this gorgeous cloud room opening. There we find Dane Clark's character Casey Morrow heavy in his cups when he meets the young and enchanting heiress Phyllis Brunner (Belinda Lee). Phyllis is the kind of girl who doesn't take no for an answer and she doesn't care that Casey is falling down drunk. Casey wakes up from being blackout drunk in the want-to-be artist Maggie's studio, after having a dream that Phyllis paid him 500 pounds to marry him. Maggie has kindly cleaned the blood out of his coat while he was sleeping. Maggie plies Casey with coffee and sends him out in the world where he discovers not only the five hundred pounds, but the cover story of his wife's father having been murdered. He runs back to Maggie and her art studio where she convinces him to investigate the murder himself to figure out who really did it and where Phyllis is. Eventually he locates Phyllis who joins in their investigative team.

The plot and the motives get a little complicated, but it's a decent mystery when the who done it isn't who did it. But one of the best parts of this film is the ending when refreshingly a character doesn't want to know the murderer's motive...they just want to make sure their name is clear and then they just want the detective to get out!

I enjoyed this noir and think noir fans should add it to their must see list.

****SPOILERS*** It's Dane Clark as American on a binge in London Casey Morrow's genuine state of confusion, in following the material he's been handed, that makes "Blackout" worth following to the very end. Which by then were finally told why he's going through all the brain twisting horror he's been suffering for the last 90 or so excruciating minutes on film. Getting smashed at the the swanky Cloud Room Pub in London Casey finds himself approached by this beautiful blond Phyllis Brunner, Belinda Lee, who not only offers to buy the barley sober Casey a couple of drinks but her hand in marriage as well as a bundle of 500 in pound sterling that's about $1,000.00 in US currency!

Later finding himself at artist Maggie Doone's, Eleanor Summerfield,loft apartment Casey finds blood on his suit and a portrait of Phyllis the woman he just met a few hours ago! Not quite knowing what to make of the situation he now finds himself in Casey is farther surprised, if he didn't have enough surprises already,to see in a newspaper headline that Phillis' dad millionaire art collector Darius Brunner had been murdered the night before! It now dawns on Casey that he's been somehow set up by Phillis to take the rap for her dad's murder! The film goes on to show that Phillys is using Casey to keep her fiancé family lawyer Lance Gordon,Andrew Osborn, from getting his hands of her father's money by marrying him instead! This to the strong objections, who thinks the world of Gordon, of her mom London party thrower Alicia, Ann Davies, who want's the marriage with Gordon to become official.

****MAJOR SPOILERS***It to both Phillys and Casey's as well as the audience surprise that the reasons for Momma Brunner wanting her daughter to marry Gordon has nothing at all to do with love & marriage but to cover her own behind in her husband's murder. Who sealed his own fate by finding out the scheme she had with Gordon to fleece him of his millions through a network of phony charity funds. And by doing that she was even more then willing to commit multiple murder, including that of her daughter Phyllis, to gain her objectives or ends up hanging for committing them!

Casey Morrow (Dane Clark) is a broke American in London. Phyllis Brunner (Belinda Lee) joins him at his nightclub table with an offer. She pays him £500 to get married. The drunken Morrow wakes up in a strange loft to Maggie Doone (Eleanor Summerfield). There's a painting of Phyllis. He assumes that it has all been a dream. News is that Phyllis is missing and her rich father has been murdered.

This is Hammer Films doing a film-noir. I guess that they haven't figured out the horror thing. This is generally rather average. The opening premise holds some interest, but the tension never gets that elevated.

As was common in the fifties, a jobbing American B-lister was brought over to add a bit of box office to a mid-budget British crime thriller. This time it was Dane Clark who portrays the down at heel "Morrow". In a bar he meets the glamorous "Phyllis Brunner" (Belinda Lee) who gets him a bit drunk then offers him £500 to marry her. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he acquiesces to this perfectly reasonable demand from a women he had known for four hours (?!) but gets quite a shock when he wakes up next day, somewhat thick headed, in an artist's studio covered in blood. Whose blood? It does not take him long to discover that his brand new father-in-law was murdered less that 12 hours earlier and that he is the prime suspect. Can he fathom out what happened before the police hear - and obviously don't believe - his story? Clark is actually not bad, here, but the plot is far too unnecessarily complicated - it could easily trip over it's own cloak and stab itself with it's own dagger - and that rather robs it of any punch. It's also really quite slow, too - quite a few scenes that add little and further decelerate the story. Not bad, but too long and never something you will remember watching.

Dane Clark plays an American drifter in London who meets a stunning blonde while on a bender at a bar. The girl tricks him into marrying him while he is in a drunken stupor and he wakes up with 500 pounds in his pocket. He then discovers he is involved in a murder and an inheritance scam.

MURDER BY PROXY (a.k.a. BLACKOUT) is one of several British attempts to duplicate the American "film noir." Sometimes they even cast a genuine American "noir" star, in this case Dane Clark. Clark was in this as well as the British "noir" PAID TO KILL. However, the results were almost always that these "Brit Noir's" were never as satisfying as the American films. MURDER BY PROXY has fairly interesting plot, but things begin to get confusing, and like most "Brit Noir's", MURDER BY PROXY builds up to its climax to slowly. There is an overly long and pointless scene where Clark visits his mother and English step father and introduces himself to his new "bride." They then throw a party. This takes ups to much time and adds nothing to story.