Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, March 30, 2017

THE DEADLY GAME (1954)

Maureen Swanson and Lloyd Bridges
THE DEADLY GAME (aka The Big Deady Game/1954). Director: Daniel Birt.

Composer Philip Graham (Lloyd Bridges of Deadly Dream) is in Spain where he encounters an old Air Force buddy Tony Roscoe (Peter Dyneley of The Manster), who wants him to deliver a certain envelope to someone in London. Philip also meets Marina (Maureen Swanson), the pretty niece of the corpulent Mr. Darius (Finlay Currie). When Philip discovers that Tony has been murdered, he first suspects the very married Mitzi (Simone Silva), who claims that Tony was blackmailing her. Before too long Philip finds himself embroiled in a plot involving smuggled microfilm. The Deadly Game is almost a complete waste of an hour and is like a forgettable episode of a forgettable TV series. Bridges saunters through displaying seedy charm, Swanson is pretty and appealing, Silva adds some limited spice, Currie is fat, the movie is dull, dull, dull. Hard to imagine why anyone thought it would be a good idea to film this lousy script. This is a Hammer noir "thriller" that has absolutely no thrills. Maureen Swanson has a vague Vivien Leigh quality but did not have the same type of career. Lots of stock footage of a fiesta in Spain.

Verdict: The pace is reasonably swift but that's about it. *.


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