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.

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.

This is a Kit Parker/Hammer Film starring Dane Clark, Belinda Lee. Eleanor Summerfield, and Harold Lang.

Clark plays Casey Morrow, an American in England. One night he meets a beautiful blond named Phyllis (Lee) and she offers him a job for a big amount of money. All he has to do is marry her.

The next day, he can't remember a thing except meeting her. He's in a strange place with a a woman he doesn't know, and there's blood on his coat. It's the painter's studio of a friend of Phyllis' (Summerfield). Morrow sees in the paper that his new wife's father was murdered the night before.

Did he do it? Did Phyllis set him up? And where is Phyllis? This is an okay noirish film that has some humor in it as well as drama. Clark is very good as a confused man trying to make his way through a labyrinth of lies and people. The plot is a little all over the place and not that easy to follow.

Clark was supposed to be another John Garfield, but his career went in another direction. He was very successful in television, appearing as a regular or semi-regular in many series and guest-starring on many TV shows.

Belinda Lee unfortunately died in a car accident in the U. S. when she was 25. In this film, she is around 19 years of age and very beautiful, touted as a Diana Dors-type. A sad end.

While interesting for the footage of London circa 1954, this is an absurd movie. The story line is almost impossible to follow. There's almost no dramatic tension. The situations and supposed relationships are so unrealistic that even willing suspension of disbelief doesn't work. The protagonist is gullible and hard to swallow as a supposed tough guy when he spends so much time playing the fool to beautiful women and whimpering like a small boy to his mother, etc. And to top it off, it really doesn't strike me as a film noir at all, just a confusing murder mystery. The best thing about it is Belinda Lee, previously unknown to me, a beautiful woman who was killed a few years later, at 26, in a California car accident.

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.