Smokescreen

A gently, wryly humorous fairly engrossing who-done-what lacking top names but packed with familiar and able players who'd supported many a British classic. Sam Kydd - was there a British post-war film without him as able seaman, workman, stuttering gang-member or as here,once again, a waiter? Derek Guyler in a neat cameo reminding us of a time before "have-nice-day" came to these shores. Typecast they might have been but familiar because they were the best of their type. I didn't then know the name of Penny Morell but certainly recognised a top performance as the very obliging but drunken secretary. Budget production it might have been but one gets the impression of an esprit de corps of director, cast and crew of professionals working for beer-money but rightly proud nevertheless.

A flaming car goes over the cliff near Brighton to land in the water hundreds of feet below. There's an insurance policy to be paid out, a bright new one just taken out, for a hundred thousand pounds, so his suspicious boss sends insurance investigator Peter Vaughan to poke around. There's no clear motive for what happened, since business was good and so was his marriage to beautiful, rich Yvonne Romaine, but it's clear that the driver faked his death to clear out.His boss, however, insists on a motive..... and that leads to some interesting insights.

Vaughan offers a delightful performance of a cartoonish-looking man in homburg and black umbrella, a skinflint as interested in cheating his insurance company out of shillings as of saving them from a false claim for a hundred thousand pounds..... even as they put him up at the most expensive hotel in Brighton while he investigates. He looks terrified trying to get information out of man-hungry Penny Morrell by getting her squiffed, and the question of who did what and why is brilliantly hidden under a trail of red herrings.

Vaughan is probably best known these days for his role on GAME OF THRONES. His role was probably written out when he fell ill and died in 2016 at the age of 93.

Peter Vaughan, a wonderful actor, is the rather slimy insurance investigator investigating a claim in coastal Sussex.

And this unlikely hero succeeds where the Police have failed!

Made on a tiny budget, this film proves that enormous budgets are not always necessary to make good cinema.

Truly a minimalist marvel.

In films, so many mysteries are investigated by police officers, investigative reporters or family members, all of whom usually conform to a certain 'type', so it's a refreshing change to find a film such as 'Smokescreen' where the person doing the snooping is a very atypical character, a quirky insurance claims investigator who goes about searching for the truth in an efficient yet coldly detached manner. In bringing this character to life, the film affords us a rare early leading role from the excellent Peter Vaughan, but just about every character in this piece is portrayed by a gem of a British actor from the period, even those that appear rather fleetingly.

Added to which, the film is beautifully shot, making very good use of its Brighton location yet not to the point of distracting from the plot. From the dramatic opening scene, in which two young lovers on a clifftop have their tryst disturbed by a burning car zooming along nearby perilously out of control before it plummets over the edge, it is apparent that this is a film of superior quality. Whether or not the car's owner was actually in the vehicle when it plunged into the sea isn't clear, and that is the question which Vaughan's character, Roper, must find the answer to. And even he himself is guarding a secret, as becomes apparent among the various twists and turns this pleasing yarn takes.

My only sense of disappointment as I watched it was that I'd worked out the solution long before the end. Or so I thought, for at the climax I discovered that the film outsmarted me. See if it manages to outsmart you.

Very enjoyable "who dunit" not overly long at 70 minutes. It was of particular interest as it was filmed in the area where I live.

Although it is amusing how Roper fiddles expenses wherever he can while investigating insurance fraud, there is an ulterior motive. Anyone who has claimed expenses will laugh at this, or maybe shift uneasily in their seat.

Reference is made to the coastal railway link between Brighton and Eastbourne. No such line has ever existed. The station mentioned, Hellingly, could not possibly be seen from the vantage point shown on Seaford Head. Hellingly is north of Hailsham some 13 miles away. Hellingly Station does feature in the film (Derek Guyler as the Stationmaster) which is of historical interest as the station did close the following year as mentioned in the dialogue. The defunct station now sits on The Cuckoo Line, a local cycle and foot path linking Polegate and Eridge.

This film proves that you do not need a large budget to make an entertaining film. A good script and surrounding locations is all you need.