Murder Can Be Deadly

Liz Fraser and Peter Reynolds have been playing the badger game. She lures a man with some money to her room, and he breaks in on them, playing the angry husband. She wants out, but is persuaded to give it one more go. She lures drunken Tony Wickert up, but Kenneth Griffith calls her, and asks how she's going to clear up the mess in the bedroom. It's Reynolds' bloody corpse. She persuaded Wickert to take the corpse, drive into the country and bury it, while she packs to leave town. Wickert, drunk, attracts the attention of the police, and abandons the car. When he sobers up, he goes to his friends for help. He and Miss Fraser have the police looking for them.... and Griffith.

There's no mystery here, but it is a pretty tight little suspense story, largely from Wickert's viewpoint. There's some nice. Owes of St. Pancras Station, and it's good to seeMiss Fraser, usually cast as a ditzy blonde, doing some acting in a minor but nicely run drama.

There is something engaging about these B-movies and usually one or two points of interest. In this instance that comes from seeing Liz Fraser in a leading role. It would be labouring the point to say she is required to stretch her acting muscles here, and in fact she is required more to squeeze her gargantuan bosom into tight negligees, but I always welcome the chance to see one of Britain's comedy stalwarts in a straight role. In fact the film has a few faces who went on to better things, including an almost unrecognisable Griffith as the cheif villain and a fresh-faced Hemmings before he turned into the corpulent Ken Russell-lookalike he is today. There is also a chance to see Nanette Newman doing what in an early 1960s B-movie passed for acting; she is beautiful though.

As far as being an entry in the British crime genre is concerned the film is rather disappointing. The synopsis I had led me to believe the plot concerned rival gang bosses fighting over a girl. The truth is that gangsterism is used purely as a backdrop for a series of events which befall the student. In fact, despite Fraser's top billing, the film shifts its focus away from Jo Lake and settles on Tom, as soon as he gets the corpse into his car. In that way the film resembles not so much a gangster film, or even an underworld film, as what was called in the 1980s a 'yuppie nightmare' movie, in the manner of AFTER HOURS or SOMETHING WILD.

Despite the strides towards realism which had been made in the genre this film insists on using a very dated portrayal of crimelords. Kleinie is coded as anything but a macho figure: he has a club foot, has an effeminacy about him, is clearly not from the working classes, and conducts operations (about which we learn nothing) from an oak-panelled office lined with books. Furthermore he is played by Kenneth Griffith, not an actor noted for his physical presence or menace.

Having said all that the film does have its own charm and it is remarkable to think, at a time when film production here has slumped, that Britain once had such a thriving industry and produced second features, such as this, to support the main film.

Somewhat complicated British Neo Noir with two separate stories that eventually connect, connected to a murder that begins with a scheming couple who make their living taking a targeted man back home: sultry blonde Liz Fraser does the rudimentary work while her partner Mark (Peter Reynolds), plays the angry jealous husband aka the badger game...

But while Liz's Jo Lake arrives at a nightclub to find the right prey, back home Peter's killed by a brooding crippled psychopath played by Kenneth Griffith, usually cast as a wimp but not here...

And yet this isn't really his story, or even the first-billed Mrs. Fraser: instead, the young man she'd picked up before realizing her con-artist partner was dead, takes over the leading role...

Enter Tony Wickert as Tom, a plain college student who, celebrating at that nightclub, had just won a hundred bucks, loudly bragged upon by buddies including David Hemmings and Ray Smith, all picking up on three younger girls while a singer croons two spooky, reverberated songs...

One that's also the film's title, THE PAINTED SMILE (aka MURDER CAN BE DEADLY), sustaining in the young man's head after he's accused of murdering the stiff lying-in-wait in the bad girl's apartment and then, in the usual Wrong Man fashion... and with tearful girlfriend Nanette Newman fretting on the sidelines... it's a race-against-time in yet another time-filler b-crime by veteran director Lance Comfort...

Who should have spent more initial energy on the scheming couple before those poor kids got caught up in someone else's scheming ways that we never had time to relish, especially with such a potentially cunning femme fatale in the ultimately underused Liz Fraser.

Liz Fraser seems to have been given a script meant for Diana Dors - an impression reinforced when she takes off her dress to reveal a black foundation garment. Rather too cute to be a convincing femme fatale, here she's rather improbably wed to Peter Reynolds.

Lance Comfort directs with style aided by regular cameraman Basil Emmott; while the cast includes an almost recognisably young Ray Smith and David Hemmings who display their aspirations to nonconformity by proposing a toast "To the Bomb!"

As the plot gets crazier and crazier - especially after a club-footed Kenneth Griffith shuffles in - you keep expecting Tony Wickert to wake up and discover It Was All a Dream, but the thing continues to the (very) bitter end.

Average B movie shown on Talking Pictures.

They are always good to watch, just to see the extras before they became more well known, as well as the cars, shops and steam trains.

David Hemmings was 20-21 and looked about 13. Nanette Newman looked fantastic. I didn't think Ray Smith was ever young, but here he was.

Anyway, this starts off in the normal way with Liz Fraser being sexploited. You know the scene, black underwear and putting on her stockings. She hadn't said a word at this stage.

Embarrassing to watch, especially as she was in the starring role.

They really pushed Craig Douglas and a couple of songs. There wasn't anything else on the radio.