Blackout

Yes the cited user makes a brave attempt to explain this crime drama plot filmed in London in 1954.I was familiar with Dane Clark after watching him in "Highly Dangerous" (1950) with Margaret Lockwood and the actor who played the lawyer by watching "Angels One Five" when he played a fighter squadron leader in a very different role.Of course the tragic actress Belinda Lee (1936-1961) was not long on this earth losing her life in a motor accident in the US but she provides the film with the necessary eye candy.

Obviously the producers were influenced by American Film Noirs of the 1940s e.g. "The Big Sleep" and make a matching brave attempt at this sort of drama for the Uk market.Incidentally I heard that 1954 was the most unremarkable year in recent history when nothing much happened of shattering world importance!I rated it 6/10 along with the IMDb.com average rating.

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.

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.

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 little British murder mystery, not a noir. The main character is a nice shlub, not a tough guy. There is very little tension or menace and certainly not any cynicism or existential despair. The dialog and bits of business are pretty funny and practically everyone in the film, including the villain, seems basically likable. Dane Clark does a very good job, although he will go on to do better. The plot offers a steady diet of red herring, but plot is not this film's strong suit. The whole thing is so likable that you may find yourself cringing that the plot and twists and turns seem so aimless and gratuitous, but it doesn't pretend to be more than a grade B movie with some good acting and good dialog.