Serena

A low budget b-movie from Britain's poverty row specialists - Butcher's Films. Patrick Holt (a former leading man in British films of the 1940's), plays Inspector Gregory of Scotland Yard who investigates the murder of an artist's wife and the disappearance of his model which coincided with the murder. Serena is very good for the type of picture it is , without a doubt. While the story is your routine murder mystery, director Peter Maxwell directs at a good pace and the b/w photography of Stephen Dade is very newsreel like and invests the proceedings with a nice feel for 1960's London . George Provis's art direction is also noteworthy. For instance, in a nod to film noir, we only ever see Serena throughout Holt's investigation in a painting by the artist. This nice touch reminded me in a sort of way of Otto Preminger's classic film, Laura, and it adds to the mystery and intrigue of the story line. All in all its a cut above the usual quality one normally expects of these things. The cast features Honor Blackman who at that time was a star on television as Cathy Gale in The Avengers espionage series. This film used turn up late at night on ITV back in the 1990's along with other b-movies like this, which vary in quality from above average to absolutely abysmal. It has since enjoyed a DVD release paired with director Maxwell's other Butcher's second feature Impact.

An artist's wife is shot dead at her country cottage and Inspector Gregory (Patrick Holt) is called in to investigate. The artist, Howard Rogers (Emrys Jones), goes to identify the body, but it turns out not to be his wife. So who was she? His wife Anne (Honor Blackman) shows up at his flat and she reveals that her close friend, a struggling actress called Claire Matthews, had been lodging with her at the cottage. In addition, Anne reveals that she was being followed by a woman with long dark hair - a private inquiry agent looking for divorce evidence or somebody more sinister? - and, in order to lose her, she paid Claire to dress in her clothes and walk into town while she quietly slipped away. It looks as though the murderer shot her mistaking her for Anne. Gregory's chief suspect is Rogers' model, Serena Vaughn, who matches the description of Anne's stalker, but she has vanished. Miss Vaughn was in love with Rogers, but despite being separated from Anne for the past few years he was on the verge of making up with his wife. Did Serena kill Claire and when she realises that she shot the wrong woman will she make another attempt on Anne's life in a bid to get the man she loves? Or is Gregory dealing with an elaborate smokescreen designed to divert attention away from another murderer?

The film opens with a woman being shot dead. The victim is assumed to be Ann Rogers, the owner of the cottage in which the body is found, and the prime suspect is her estranged husband, an artist named Howard Rogers. Although Howard claims to have an alibi, he also has an obvious motive to want his wife dead. He has been having an affair with his model, Serena Vaughan, but Ann, a devout Catholic, has refused to grant him the divorce he would need to marry Serena.

And then the situation is turned upside down by a series of coups de cinema. Taken to identify the body, Howard claims it is not that of his wife, and Ann suddenly turns up alive and well, saying that she wants a reconciliation with her husband. Howard produces a witness who can support his alibi, and Ann tells the police that the murdered woman was Claire Matthews, a friend who was staying with her and was presumably killed by mistake for Ann herself. Suspicion now shifts to Serena Vaughan, who is missing. There is, however, to be one more devastating plot twist.

"Serena" was originally made in black-and-white as a B-movie, which explains its brevity, little more than an hour in length. Yet it is an intriguing, well-plotted murder mystery which keeps the audience guessing about who we can trust and which information we can take at face value. Although it was made as long ago as 1962, it still turns up regularly on British television, a testament to its durability. 7/10

A goof. The police officer investigating the crime holds the rank of Detective Chief Inspector, but after he shows his identity badge to a potential witness, the man addresses him as "Superintendent".

Scotland Yard, in the shape of doughty DCI Gregory (Patrick Holt) and DS Conway (Bruce Beeby), are called to investigate the mysterious and brutal shotgun murder of the estranged wife of dapper and (apparently) womanising artist Howard Rogers (Emrys Jones). This takes place in the fictional rural Surrey village of Cookley- in truth, the more familiar venues of Laleham and Chertsey.

In substance, a typical Butchers B movie from Shepperton, ably directed by Peter Maxwell and it manages to hold the interest better than most; the moody jazz intro and outro (Johnny Gregory) is excellent.

Patrick Holt plays his part as a gruffly determined cop stolidly, although his repeated calls to his driver to "chop, chop" must have been grating for the poor chap. Honor Blackman looks great here and lends the film some glamour just before her big break in "The Avengers" and two years before "Goldfinger".

Emrys Jones is very good, charmingly convincing and smoothness personified; he reminded me here of a young Bryan Forbes circa "League of Gentlemen ". Mysteriously , it seems his career filtered down into TV roles only - a shame. In the bit parts, it was good to see Peter Glaze ("Crackerjack") and Vi Stevens as an hilariously hard of hearing landlady. Of absolutely no interest to anyone other than B film nerds, Gerry Duggan appears briefly here as a farmer- two years later he too was in "Goldfinger", as 007's caddie.

It's only about an hour running time so doesn't outlast its welcome and actually quite engaging and fun - highly recommended for B film fans.

This is a very good and suspenseful murder mystery, with a neat twist at the end. The film was well acted, had good production values, and Honor Blackman, as always, looked lovely.

Not usually being so observant, I too noticed the "goof" that has already been reported on IMDB. Peter Glaze was usually a very funny comedian. I thought the fact that he called Patrick Holt a "superintendent", after presentation of the detectives warrant card, was for comic relief - or deliberate to see if cinema audiences were paying attention.

Apart from Patrick Holt, the only one in the film who seemed to get his rank correct was the policewoman who intervened when the himself and his sergeant nearly arrested the wrong woman. She was played by Pat Shaw in what seems to have been a very rare film appearance.

Throughout the rest of the film, Detective Gregory had been introducing himself as a Chief Inspector.

We open with a woman walking up the stairs, turning to find a person standing in the doorway and - boom! The police arrive at the rural cottage and we discover that she was the wealthy wife of struggling painter "Howard" (Emyr Jones). Was everything in their marriage happy? Well it falls to "Insp. Gregory" (Patrick Holt) to get to the bottom fo things - a task made more complicated when one of the artist's models goes missing and that's before we get quite a twist to throw the plates in the air and leave us with a rather jumbled and overly contrived mystery. The remainder of the hour seems designed to showcase the acting talents of Honor Blackman rather than deliver a plausible mystery and by the end I'd rather lost interest. It's a low budget affair which doesn't help, but Peter Maxwell's rather staccato and lacklustre direction makes heavy weather of this, sorry.