Spin a Dark Web

This was an interesting little British crime film that starred both an American actress and a Canadian actor, which I guess was common at the time.

The story is about Canadian Jim Bankley who while training at a British boxing gym owned by Tom Walker he befriends Tom's two children, Bill and Betty. Bill is a promising boxer at the ring and unbeknownst to Jim is asked by a local mobster to take a dive in the ring which he doesn't do.

Meanwhile Jim who hasn't been successful is looking for work and his fellow Canadian, Buddy. He finds Buddy who gets him a job with his employer the local mobster Rico Francesi...only it's not really Buddy or Rico that gets Jim hired, it's Rico's sister Bella. Bella takes a shine to Jim and wants him moved up the paces.

Bottom-line is Jim is a good guy (I.e. He may be ok with tapping phone lines to fix betting on horses at the track, but he is not ok with murder), so when Bill ends up dead at the hands of one of Rico's goons and Jim finds out about it he wants out. Only then does he discover how blood thirsty Bella really is.

Good action, interesting story...but the best part of this film is really the 1950's sidewalk/street scenes in England...fresh market, neon signs, liquor store, etc. GGreat, great footage and for me the best part of this film. A noir buff might enjoy this film..and those with curiosity like me.

A sort of British version of 711 OCEAN DRIVE has a young naïve tech expert hired to wire up a horse race betting scheme so the villains can get the inside tip straight from the bookie's mouth...

Yet it begins like a boxing noir since the lanky and passive Canadian import Lee Patterson is a wannabe prizefighter set with a girl-next-door girlfriend, daughter of a trainer and his fighter son... the latter killed by a no-good hood played by Bernard Fox before his signature mustache made him an endearing magical character-actor...

His gruff character here breaking SPIN A DARK WEB into two parts: one has our hero sent by plan-plotting criminals Martin Benson and Robert Arden to pay or catch or maybe even kill hideaway Fox while working out the aforementioned con...

And there needed more of the first as the sting is too complicated while the best scenes, traipsing in and out of actual London streets/locales, clash with phony-looking rear-projection driving scenes... thankfully there's less of the latter...

And like all Film Noirs it's a sexy femme fatale who makes our blank-slate boy turn savage-sappy while he neglects the good gal who had him first... but she isn't very attractive, or interesting... and token wildcard Faith Domergue doesn't have enough time to SPIN that DARK titular WEB with all those literal wires getting crossed and uncrossed, again and again.

Director Vernon Sewell, about whom I am embarrassingly ignorant, does pull off a good job with this British B noir picture entitled originally SPIN A DARK WEB (SOHO INCIDENT in the US circuit).

Some weaknesses notwithstanding, the script by Ian Black is solid. I had found it difficult to believe that Rona Anderson's highly fit boxeur brother died after getting hit over the head with a small and flexible police baton, just as I could not see the need for Rico Francesi to bump off McLeod, who had been absent from the screen for some 60', when they had more pressing matters to attend to. On the positive end, we get to listen to some sharp dialogue, conveyed mainly by deceitfully evil femme fatale Domergue in contrast with upstanding Lee Patterson.

I feel that stunningly beautiful Rona Anderson was given a far smaller part than she deserved, the same going for Peter Burton in the role of Inspector Collis.

As was the habit in British B pics of the 1950s, foreign nationals get the male and female leads (Domergue a US citizen, Patterson Canadian). Cinematography is good enough for the film's purposes, but I have seen better in other Brit B pics.

Very catchy tune entitled "Love me, love me now" sung by Julie Dawn.

All told, a fun 76 minutes with some gripping action and repartee.

A boxer fails to take a dive as promised. Fight promoter Martin Benson sends Lee Patterson to warn him --nicely. The fighter knocks Patterson down, who kills him in reply. Now Patterson is on the run, and wants Benson to protect him.... and he knows all the angles.

It's a nice, dirty little movie, well directed by Vernon Sewall, with an unusual take on the sort of dirty boxing promoters who look upon the whole operation as the entertainment business, and who want things to run smoothly. I can't help but think it's all a metaphor for the movie business under the Studio System, with the managers trying to run a nicely packaged system, and the talent they so depend on always bollixing things up, leaving the bosses to fix things without anyone getting hurt. Anyone else, that is. There are some nice performances by Faith Domergue as Benson's bloodthirsty wife, and some familiar performers, like Sam Kydd amd Bernard Fox (in his screen debut), further down the cast list.

This is only a shabby B-feature but it grows interesting as it develops. A young Canadian coming from America has a friend in Soho whom he looks up and asks for a job, and the friend gets him a job as a kind of general technical support to a Sicilian who runs various rackets concerning racing horses and greyhounds, who doesn't mind applying murky measures. He has a sister who gets interested in the young Canadian, and they develop a relationship. Too late it appears that she is the spider in the web of her brother's murky affairs, our Canadian wants to get out but it is too late, he knows too much, and she won't let him. There are a few murders and that spiral is getting worse, and so the intrigue develops towards constantly more doubtful complications. Finally there are some thrilling car chases through the waterfront of London with amazing views and insights into that and the Soho part of London in the 50s. For this the film is worth watching, even if you have to wait for it. Faith Domergue makes a fascinating portrait of the fatal woman in question in her cool intelligent and cruel calculation, and Lee Patterson makes a likeable figure of the innocent Canadian who can't get out of his unintentional mess. It should be seen in black-and-white though.