Death Goes to School

This is the only feature directed by Stephen Clarkson. It's hard to see why, as he does a good job, and co-wrote the script with Maisie Sharman. I'm grateful to Renown and their Talking Pictures TV for the chance to see this rare film.

A teacher at a south of England girls' school is murdered, and since she had a talent for angering her colleagues, there are plenty of suspects. The investigation is led by Inspector Campbell from Scotland Yard. He's a dour Scot with a chip on his shoulder (he'd definitely have voted for independence!) but fortunately he's played by Gordon Jackson, who's always a sympathetic presence. I saw him play a villain in another Renown offering, I think "The Delavine Affair," and he didn't ring true.

One reviewer complained about the cut-glass accents, but given the date and milieu they're to be expected. The Queen still talks like that, and I agree it's irritating, but not as irritating as the inaudibility of so many modern American actors, which makes you wonder why their scriptwriters bothered writing dialogue.

"Death|" is unusual for a British B of the '50s is that there's some humour. When Campbell asks Miss Shepherd what book she's been reading she says "Death in Seven Hours", the book by Ms Sharman on which this film is based. She then needles the inspector by saying that an amateur sleuth solved the mystery. This gives the audience a clue, as later she solves the mystery before him, though to be fair that's because she'd seen something and not told him about it.

All in all, an enjoyable way to spend 64 minutes.

All I can say, is this movie was taken from a book written by the author Stratford Davis - and it didn't do her justice. Yup, a little background. The male name Stratford Davis was actually the pen name of a female with the birth name Maisie Sharman who wrote several books under the male name just so she could be published during the thirties. She later penned several more books under the name Miriam Sharman (last name was real until she married a Bolton in Hampshire, and then went under the name Miriam Bolton for several screenplays for the BBC). The reason I know this trivia about a little known author is simply because she was my great-aunt on my maternal Grandfather's side. I have collected several of her books from her later periods (50's and 60's); and while they would never be on a par with Conan Doyle or P.D. James, I found them enjoyable for a short bout of escapism.

Despite the flaws in the script and the improbabilities of this film, it comes over as a very good and uncomplicated murder mystery, with the only clue being the heel print of a size 5 shoe in the soil behind where the assailant may have stood behind the victim.

Despite the low budgeted production values, the film still had me guessing right up to the very end, leaving a conclusion that even the detectives were not able to come to.

It was surprising to see Gordon Jackson in one of his earlier films. He was a very fine actor and, at first, I thought that he was probably miscast in this film, but as his character developed you could clearly see why he was chosen for this role.

I am also surprised why the film was never remade, as with the right actors and director, the film could have become one of the great British classics.

A teacher is found dead on the school grounds. Local police investigate, decide it's murder, and call in Scotland Yard in the person of Scottish Gordon Jackson.

It's a classic English mystery, with Jackson interviewing the faculty, finding they all quarreled with the dead woman, and gradually coming to realization of the murderer, but unable to locate a key piece of evidence. Meanwhile, teacher Barbara Murray is thinking hard about the case.

There's very little to expand the movie, co-written by director Stephen Clarkson and Maisie Sharman from a novel by Miss Sharman. There are only three or four shots beyond small sets, and the cheapness shows in lack of characterization. Nonetheless, it's a fair puzzle mystery.

I could only award this 1953 film 5/10.As the diner guest in Basil Fawlty's restaurant at "Fawlty Towers" said when asked by Basil "Did he like his meal?" he responded, (the way I felt when I saw this film today with my wife, an ex-teacher at a primary school); "Well it was adequate".So I appear to damn the film with faint praise but look at the obvious production budget.In the year of the coronation most British cinemas showed a cartoon, Pathe news, a "B" feature before "the big "A" picture" and I suspect this would have been a "B" picture then.We must therefore expect cheaper relatively unknown actors/actresses and virtually no locational shots filmed outside the studio system.Indeed the only actors I recognised were:Gordon Jackson, Sam Kydd, Beatrice Varley and Barbara Murray, hardly household names then and probably unknown to our American friends who saw this film.

Now having got the carping out of the way did it have some good points?Well yes, the screenwriters managed to keep "whodunnit" right to the end but the motive for murder was not sufficiently evident to me.There would be a job awaiting Miss Shepherd in the police if she wanted to give up music teaching but having teaching in my family, it tends to get into your blood.