River Patrol

I don't usually write reviews, but this film is so awful I felt obliged to comment on it.

Firstly, the lighting is really poor. In some of the night scenes it's hard to tell what's going on, and even the studio set (where nearly the whole film takes place) is poorly lit.

There's also no proper sense of movement between scenes. They cut abruptly from one to the next without proper continuity because the film was so cheaply made.

And to judge from the limited camerawork and background music I would've guessed that this was made in the 1930's rather than 1948.

This is one of the worst films I've seen in a long while.

This film was made by Hammer at Marylebone Studios.Clearly these studios were about the size of a broom cupboard.In one scene set in a detectives room one of the actors actually has to come in sideways in order to sit at a desk.The leading man is John Blithe,here cast as a river policeman,normally playing spivs.He is on the case of a nylon smuggling gang led by the redoubtable Wally Patch.In one scene Patch stabs someone with his swordstick.Only we don't see the victim as the studio is to small to get everyone in view.The climactic fight between Blithe and Patch at the end is too funny to be true.I wonder if they had a fight co ordinator in those days.As entertaining as a low budget film like this could expect to be.

In the aftermath of World War II Officer "Robbie" Robinson is out to avenge the death of his close friend Maxwell by smashing an international nylon-smuggling racket. He and his partner go undercover at a local drinking den but soon find themselves in over their heads. Brisk little British B-Picture from the days before the name Hammer was synonymous with Horror. The ever-reliable Wally Patch is on fine form as the terrifying and murderous smuggling Kingpin.

Delightful early Hammer studios confection with no pretentious plot twists or surprises. The stars are doing everything required of them, nothing more and nothing less. As an example of putting money on the screen this is perfect. The smuggling of goods is as appropriate today as it was then, and depicts the approaches which the law takes in manner conducive to its nature.

There's a gun battle on the Thames and John Blythe's assistant is killed. But there something far more dire; the Home Office is upset because someone is selling nylons cheap! So Blythe and assistant Lorna Dean tramp the Docklands until they wind up at Wally Patch's gambling club, where they sell him a few cases of bootleg whisky.

Patch's real racket is buying a lot of stockings in France, killing the seller with his sword-cane and tossing the body overboard. Meanwhile, Miss Dean is kidnapped and stored right next to a telephone, where she can call her boss to rescue her and Blythe, who is knocked around by Patch.

Not only are there obviously mismatched shots; not only is the score bucolic Romantic music (with boogie-woogie for the gambling club) played off scratchy wax cylinders until the 38-minute mark of this 45-minute movie, but this seems to have been shot in Hammer's legendary Marleybone Studio, where each stage was about the size of a bedsit, but.... well, it's worse than even that.

Stunningly awful.