Dilemma

Coming to this film only eleven years (!) after Chris Gaskins' review, his comment "The piano tuner being blind is a little far fetched though" stirred a memory,so I looked online and saw that there is indeed an Association of Blind Piano Tuners. It may be an edition of QI that I am remembering, and I believe that Stephen Fry said that there is no authoritative figure of the number of UK piano tuners. My education is not solely derived from TV, I hasten to add.

This film isn't really a thriller, but it is successful in being a suspense filled drama. This film is actually quite a gem. The plot and entire pretext for the film are simple but takes a twist at the end which I don't think anybody could predict. The final explanation for the dead body in the end is not complex, but it is extremely clever and not cliched like 99.9% of big Hollywood blockbusters. It was actually a very refreshing modern ending, which I was not expecting considering the film was made in the early 1960s, this helps push the film above simply being a low-budget British affair.

The whole thing is shot in a believable and completely intruiging way, yes this film is simple, but that is what makes it so brilliant. It works because it is believable -he is an ordinary man, who lives in an ordinary house, not some mansion in Beverly Hills. The film is fuelled by suspense over what the schoolmaster is going to do with the body, all the more so because his nosey neighbour cannot stop interferring.

I found this film very similar to "The Nanny" starring Bette Davis, they are very similar in that they simply tell a story, without enormous complications and huge Hollywood overcomplicating budgets getting in the way. Some people will probably not enjoy it for it's simplicity, because they are so used to big budget blockbusters, but if your willing to give this film a try you will find it is actually extremely enjoyable. If it was available on VHS I would probably buy it. 10 out of 10.

Off-Beat Black Comedy that Plays Like an Episode of Boris Karloff's "Thriller" TV Show.

In Fact it Looks TV, Sounds TV, and Ultimately, Ironically that was the Format where the Brits had to Settle.

It was a Time when the British Film Industry was Phasing Out this Type of Thing,

with its Ultra-Low-Budget and Smallish Appeal on the Big-Screen.

So this Well-Written and Played Little Gem did Not get Distributed and Languished in Limbo for Years.

Above Average, Highly-Entertaining and Snappy Thriller.

It also Reminds of those "E. C." Pre-Code Comics that had Mothers and Senators in a Tizzy.

The Plot is "Hide-the-Body" Against All Odds.

Because the Living Room is Not the Ideal Graveyard.

Although it did Become One for Serial-Killer and Kids Party Clown John Wayne Gacy.

Remove the Floor-Boards, Add a Bag of Cement,

and Try to Avoid those Suburban Nuisances Like Nosy-Neighbors, Nuns with Collection Plates, Uninvited Doting Mom, and the Ever-Present Local Police.

The Door-Bell gets a Work-Out at just the Wrong Time and the Thing Escalates the Suspense and Frustration Factor for the One-Hour Running Time.

It Ends with a Twist, Fitting for 1962, the Era of the Dance-Craze.

This is Adult Entertainment for the Main-Stream.

This was a company founded by and for film technicians.This was their last production as B films were being phased out.Whilst they found a distributor in Bryanston,no cinema circuit would play it.So it ended up being sold to television.It was felt that audiences would be unlikely to accept the basic premise.It is though an entertaining film.

What would you do if you came home to find your beautiful, rich wife, Ingrid Hafner missing -- the snoopy lady next door says she heard a scream and ran out earlier -- and a dead man on the floor of the bath room> If you're Peter Halliday, about to go off on holiday with your wife, you get concrete and bury him beneath the floorboards, of course. That is, if you can get past the constant interruptions: Patricia Burke with cups of tea, nuns collecting for missionaries, mother Joan Heath showing up to slang the wife, and so forth. It's a very funny movie that distracts the viewer from wondering what the dead man is doing there.

Pip and Jane Baker disavowed the script, saying it wasn't anything like what they handed in. I think they made a mistake.