The Man in Black

Based on the extremely popular BBC radio series from the thirties and forties, The Man in Black played by famously spooky voiced Valentine Dyall introduces the story. Yogi follower Sid James dies in his country pile leaving his fortune to his daughter. His wife looks for ways of disinheriting her through having her committed or worse.

Whilst you can quite easily see roughly what is going on here right from the start and it is all a bit twin set and pearls, there is much to enjoy here and a number of twists and turns to keep you guessing. It's an early Hammer film and its radio origins do rather betray it, but it makes for a pleasant hour and a half and nice to Sid James in a straight role for once.

It's interesting to see Sid James play a straight (albeit brief) role for change in this simple little crime thriller. He is a wealthy chap with a rather venal second wife and step-daughter. His obsession with mysticism leads, one evening, to a risky experiment and it all goes wrong... We have no absence of potential culprits as his new family try to drive his daughter out of her mind so they can inherit his fortune. Betty Ann Davies is good as the scheming the wife, with Sheila Burrell likewise as her ghastly, grasping, daughter all manipulating poor old "Joan" (Hazel Penwarden) in a decently paced mystery. Sadly the ending is writ a bit large from fairly early on, and that makes it all sag a bit - maybe Francis Searle could have tightened it up by a quarter of an hour? It's still an enjoyable watch, though - with a slightly more sophisticated script (that may owe something to it's BBC radio heritage). It is rarely shown nowadays, but is worth seeing through if you encounter it.

Another movie watched ahead of the "House of Hammer" podcast related to it. Another adaptation of a BBC radio series into a film. Another one where I come away a bit disappointed by the end product, despite it seeming like a decent premise.

With his health failing, Henry Clavering (Sid James) has turned to Yoga to ease his stresses. During a demonstration one night, a falling painting startles him, causing him seemingly to die. With Henry's inheritance falling to his daughter Joan (Hazel Penwarden), his scheming second wife Bertha (Betty Ann Davies) arrives at a plan to convince the fragile Joan that her mind his failing and that Bertha would be better placed to look after their affairs. Bertha's plan is complicated by the arrival of Victor (Anthony Forwood) fiancé of Bertha's daughter Janice (Sheila Burrell) who starts to wonder if the newly minted Joan might make a better bet.

I liked the performances in this one, particularly from what turns out to be the central double act of Bertha and Janice. They bicker back and forth, and the films funniest moment comes from them. The film is not meant to be funny though, despite Sid James presence. Smoking and murder are the order of the day here. This is probably the best-looking film we've seen from Hammer so far and, despite some incongruous music choices the audio recording is solid too.

But the story is too busy for me. I just want to see Bertha try and gaslight Joan and for "Hodson" to try and rescue her. Victor ends up coming in and setting up a side plot that just complicates matters and the film moves away from the focus it should have. Bertha's scheme seems to involve opening a door and moving a photograph, good early steps but more time should have been spent there trying to convince her of her failing faculties. Speaking of Hodson, there is a reveal involving him that I wonder if might have caught more people unaware in 1950, whereas to 2022 eyes it's apparent from the first moment you see him. I also don't really see what the "Man in Black" aspect added to it, other than presumably to capitalise on the popular radio series, as the film doesn't need a narrator and the way he's tied into this doesn't really make sense.

It's not the worst film I've watched for the podcast, but not the best either and the slow plot and obvious twist mean I don't think there's much for a 21st century audience.

Sid James --in a serious role -- is a rich man who practices yoga. Before a demonstration in which he simulates being dead, he warns that anyone who speaks could kill him dead. His second wife, Betty Ann Davies, makes sure of that. She is disappointed when a quarter of a million pounds is left to his daughter from his first wife, Hazel Penwarden. There's good news, though. If she goes mad before her 21st birthday, the bequest is cut to a fifth of that, Betty Ann picks it up and gets management of that. So Miss Davies and her daughter from a previous marriage, Sheila Burrell, plot to gaslight her, with the help of money-hungry Anthony Forwood.

Nice people. Miss Penwarden seems quite wacky, alternating terror with cheerfulness as people keep dying, and she has conversations with them after they become corpses. I won't say the outcome is a surprise, but it's done with such roguish black humor, that I enjoyed it.

It's based on Valentine Dyall's hit BBC radio show of the same name, and Mr. Dyall is on hand to introduce us to the people involved. At the time, Hammer Pictures, under the "Exclusive Films" distribution marque, offered several movies based on currently popular radio shows, including DICK BARTON, DETECTIVE, MEET SIMON CHERRY, and THE ADVENTURES OF P.C. 49. None lasted more than a couple of movies.

Based on the British radio series Appointment with Fear and one of Hammer's earliest ventures into horror, albeit as a film noir thriller, smoking and murder are the order of the day with The Man in Black. Despite all its creaks and groans of cliché, the film remains a thoroughly entertaining watch, filled with spooky kitchen sink melodrama and enjoyable performances. The direction by Francis Searle is adequately engaging, with plenty of moody images which bolster the otherwise notably cheap production and relatively straight-laced script. The interplay between Betty Ann Davies and Sheila Burrell makes up the heart of this film's runtime, and they achieve some sinister moments, yet can also be very funny together, managing to be both repellently toxic and beguilingly seductive at the same time. We are also treated to some prime Sid James in one of his earliest film roles, long before his part in the Carry On ensemble. Here, he plays a serious and quite sober role with conviction, even going as far as to play a dual role, something he does with perfect competence. There are a couple of interesting twists and turns to The Man in Black, but this isn't a classic for a reason; the titular character plays no real part in the narrative, and we don't even see him on screen again after the opening credits end but the film keeps up a relatively breezy pace to the point where, if you're engaging with it, you'll scarcely notice.