SUSPENDED ALIBI

Naomi Chance and Patrick Holt

SUSPENDED ALIBI (1957). Director: Alfred Shaughnessy. 

Editor Paul Pearson (Patrick Holt of The Unholy Four) has been playing around with a fashion writer, Diana (Naomi Chance of Wings of Danger), despite his having a loving wife, Lynn (Honor Blackman), and young son, Bobby (Toby Winterbottom). He is trying to call it off with Diana, and uses a buddy, Bill (Bryan Coleman) as a beard. Unfortunately Bill is stabbed to death and Paul becomes a suspect. He tells the police he spent most of his time away from home with Diana, but when questioned she refuses to give him an alibi. Just in case she might change her mind, the real killer pays a call on Diana ... and then Paul is really in trouble.  

Patrick Holt and Honor Blackman

In some ways Suspended Alibi plays like something made twenty years earlier. The characters are not developed very well, and there are no scenes where the impossibly understanding wife has a strong confrontation with her adulterous husband -- he seems to get a free pass. There is a little suspense at the end as the police rush to apprehend the killer, but otherwise the film is watchable but has little tension. Another murder scene in which someone gets thrown out of a window is laughably muffed. Others in the cast include Andrew Keir as a reporter-friend of Paul's; Valentine Dyall as Inspector Kayes; and Lloyd Lamble as the neighbor Waller. 

Verdict: Distinctly minor-league British mystery that could have been developed into something much more worthwhile. **1/4. 

THE CAT GIRL

Barbara Shelley

THE CAT GIRL (aka Cat Girl/1957). Director: Alfred Shaughnessy.

Leonora Johnson (Barbara Shelley) is married to the unfaithful Richard (Jack May), but is secretly in love with former paramour, Dr. Brian Marlow (Robert Ayres of Battle Beneath the Earth), who is now married to Dorothy (Kay Callard of The Flying Scot). If that weren't enough of a mess, Leonora's crazy uncle (Ernest Milton), who keeps a leopard in the house, has convinced his niece that she is under a family curse and can turn into a leopard, or that she has a bond with it that can cause it -- or her -- to kill. Who the hell knows? In any case, when Brian tries to convince Leonora that she isn't really crazy and isn't growing claws, she decides it would be best to rid the world of her rival, Dorothy. This confusing mish mosh is a blatant rip off of Cat People, and while it's all overwrought and entertaining in a modest fashion, its chief strength is an excellent, intense performance by Barbara Shelley [The Gorgon] as the highly unlikable Leonora. Lily Kann is also effective as the uncle's housekeeper, Anna, and the various supporting performances are adept. But the movie is not really worth much in the long run.

Verdict: A monster movie with a most disappointing "monster." **.