Serena

I am very respectful of the Butcher Studios. They put out many programmers of sufficient quality to make you forget the main feature. SERENA is no masterpiece, but it is very competently directed by Peter Maxwell, who extracts quality performances from the entire ensemble, the stunningly beautiful Honor Blackman above all.

Director Maxwell very cleverly opens the film with the murder of Mrs Rogers, doing it in such a way that it becomes clear that the spectator will only get the data that he, Maxwell, is willing to release. The murder shows neither the face of the deceased nor that of the killer, and the door into Mrs Rogers' apartment is opened by the murderer's hand. One important clue: the murderer goes right in, without using any key to get in and find its mark, suggesting someone familiar enough with the abode to know its layout.

Holt makes a very classy, clued up and insistent police inspector. He never says more than he needs, cleverly and tirelessly reading all the signs until he plays the decisive identifying card that beats the criminal(s).

Excellent cinematography by Steven Dade, crisp editing by Morrison, and pleasant music by Johnny Gregory only enhance the quality of Maxwell's direction and of the Hearne and Abraham screenplay.

Of course SERENA forces you to suspend your disbelief here and there, and you can spot holes in the plot, but it is intelligently done with a shoestring budget and within a highly economical 59 minutes.

You will not waste your time if you watch it.

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.

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.

Serena is a fun and intriguing little British film that exceeded my rather low expectations. Patrick Holt and Honor Black are amongst this solid cast all of which provide capable performances throughout. The story is interesting and does offer us a surprising plot twist toward the end of the film that I did not seeing coming. The look and sound of the film a good and creates a distinct vibe and feel that is appreciated. The direction is brisk yet steady in propelling the action ever forward. At a running time of just 60 minutes, Serena manages to pack in quite a bit to make this film one worth watching.

The late Honor Blackman (billed third), after starting out playing ingenues followed by several years in the doldrums, had by 1962 been reduced to working for Butchers. But she had by now adopted that swept-back mane that by the end of the year would be indelibly associated with Cathy Gale and the lioness she thereafter remained for the rest of her long life.

It may have been intentional that naming the film after the corpse at the centre of the action was a conscious nod to 'Laura'. But making the religion of the victim a central plot point remains an unusual touch.