They Can't Hang Me

This film would appear to be inspired,if that is the word,by the defection of Burgess and MacLean to the Russians in the 1950s.Terence Morgan plays a special branch officer who has a butler,the inimitable Reginald Beckwith.He also is lumbered by having Yolande Donlan as his girl friend by virtue of the fact that she was married to the director Val Guest.The best part of the film is the opening two minutes,after that it rather drags.To my mind there is a basic flaw.Why would the murderer wait till he was sitting in the condemned cell before trying to make a deal.This makes no sense whatsoever.It is not till near the end that we learn who is the escaping secret agent.However the climax is very disappointing.

Breezy espionage drama in which Terence Morgan and Anthony Oliver race around London and the Home Counties looking for a master spy. Director Val Guest's wife Yolande Donlan is so teeth-grindingly chirpy as Morgan's redundant love interest that you can't blame him for spending all his time at work, while Andre Morell is terrific as a civil servant trying to bargain away the noose from around his neck by revealing the spy's identity. Still not sure who phoned the police in the opening scene, though...

André Morell is "Pitt" - in jail awaiting hanging for murdering a prostitute. At the last minute he contacts "Insp. Brown" (Terence Morgan) with information about master spy "Leonidas" who is about to take a top scientific secret behind the iron curtain - in return for his life! Together with his sidekick Anthony Oliver ("Insp. Newcombe") they set off to thwart this plan. It's a decent enough story that moves along a-pace. Yolande Donlan adds a bit of light relief as the fiancée who spends much of her time waiting around for her detective boyfriend and there are just enough red herrings to keep this intriguing, if a bit lightweight thriller, going for 75 minutes.

Mr. Pitt is sentenced to death for having strangled a prostitute, but he claims they can't hang him since he is in possession of state secrets concerning the security of the nation and possibly of the world. It's a grand opening of a very hot thriller, and in charge of the investigation with heavy loads of responsibility and under the constantly exacerbated stress of time is inspector Terence Morgan, who admirably succeeds in playing it cool all the way, in spite of gunfights with intents to kill and the threat of death of the key witness. The action is very fast, the dialog is like crossfire all the way, and the plot constantly thickens. Meanwhile, the condemned prisoner is vexed by the police officers and guards who disturb him while he is listening to piano music. The realism is convincing enough, the Poles even speak Polish (which is not translated), and the story is well contrived under the circumstances of the case of Klaus Fuchs (mentioned once) and the extreme most paranoid secrecy around the development of the absurdity of the terror balance.

Sentenced to death for murder, a civil servant reveals that he has long been a foreign agent smuggling secrets out of the country. He meets with special branch officer Inspector Brown and offers to reveal the identity of an elusive master spy in return for a reprieve. With five days before Pitt is to be hung, Brown sets out to trace the identity of the spy without having to reprieve Pitt.

I was attracted to this film by the shameless title! "They Can't Hang Me" is the cry of Pitt as he is sentenced to death for murder. This happens within the first two minutes of the film in almost complete silence. It is from this point that our story begins - there is never any doubt that Pitt killed the woman but now he wants to deal. The mystery starts well and has potential but it is never filled as fully as I'd hoped at the start. Instead it goes off the rails and becomes baggy and the climax is a real damp squid. It's a shame because it moved quickly for 30 minutes or so and promised much. It is still worth watching once but it isn't very good.

The acting is reasonable for this type of British film of the period and I did quite enjoy the characters. Morgan's Brown is stern logic on force and his side kick from the murder squad adds plenty of light comic touches. Donlan's presence is a mystery and really contributes to the lack of focus and bagginess at times. I guess she was there for the US audience. The bad guys aren't as dangerous or as threatening as we are led to believe from their "master spy" billing, and don't really stick in the memory.

Overall this is an average mystery film but it could have been much better. The good opening and interesting build up in the first half is really good but the film can't deliver on the tension - it should have cranked up but instead it really lets itself go and gets baggy and loses focus.