THE BLACK GLOVE

Alex Nicol

THE BLACK GLOVE (aka Face the Music/1954). Director: Terence Fisher.

"Happy days! Everyone was poor and no one was evil."

James Bradley (Alex Nicol of Heatwave) is a famous American trumpeter appearing in London. One night he meets a charming young lady named Maxine (Ann Hanslip) who invites him to her apartment for dinner. The next day he learns that the woman has been murdered, and he determines to find out who killed this stranger who struck such a chord in him. The suspects are many: the victim's sister,. Barbara (Eleanor Summerfield), who lost her man to Maxine; Maxine's fiancee, Johnny Sutherland (Paul Carpenter of The Unholy Four); the famous pianist Jeff Colt (Arthur Lane); and his wife Gloria (Paula Byrne). Frankly, the whole business with "Brad" playing detective is ridiculous, even if the inspector on the case implies that he was letting him have a free hand for his own purposes. We even have the bit where this amateur sleuth gathers all the suspects together to make an accusation. The acting is uniformly good, although Nicol is given a rather impossible and somewhat unsympathetic character to play. This Hammer production is like a TV show.

Verdict: Good cast but unmemorable in all other respects. **.

BLACKOUT (1954)

BLACKOUT (aka Murder By Proxy/1954). Director: Terence Fisher.

Casey Morrow (Dane Clark) is moping around getting drunk in a bar when an attractive blond named Phyllis (Belinda Lee) pays him 500 dollars to marry her. He later learns that her father was murdered later that night, that she is already engaged to another man, and seeks the help of a painter, Maggie (Eleanor Summerfield), who is doing a portrait of the mysterious Phyllis. Blackout meanders along from scene to scene without much suspense or tension and director Terence Fisher seems as disinterested with the material as the viewer probably will be. There is a very good scene when Casey sees his mother (Nora Gordon/Gorden) for the first time in several years wherein the actress beautifully expresses both her joy at seeing her boy and her suppressed rage at his being out of touch for so long. Clark and the other cast members all give good performances, but the movie is more tedious than anything else. Betty Ann Davies shows some bite as Phyllis' unlovely mother. Another Hammer studio crime drama released in the US by Lippert. The later film Homicidal also had a blond paying a man to marry her but was much, much more entertaining. Lee was in the far superior Footsteps in the Fog the following year, and Summerfield made Man Bait the year before.

Verdict: Watch this during a blackout. **.   

MAN BAIT

MAN BAIT (aka The Last Page/1952). Director: Terence Fisher.

The British film The Last Page was given the zestier title Man Bait  -- with the figure of Diana Dors highlighted in the ads -- when it was released in the U.S. John Harman (George Brent, in one of his last theatrical films) runs a book store in London and cares for his invalid wife (Isabel Dean). He has a loyal assistant named Stella (Marguerite Chapman) and a sexy clerk, Ruby (Diana Dors), who is saucy and always coming in late. A minor incident between the two -- Ruby impulsively kisses John when they're working late in his office -- snowballs into tragedy when Ruby's new friend, the sinister Jeffrey (Peter Reynolds), importunes Ruby to make more of the business and even blackmail her boss. Before long, John is being accused of murder. It seems bizarre that John was planning to take his wife on a holiday, when she proves to be so fatally frail later in the movie. Man Bait holds the attention, but is distinctly minor, although Dors is quite good, as is Reynolds, and Brent and Chapman are more than competent. Eleanor Summerfield also makes an impression as Vi, a woman who is crazy about Jeffrey and jealous of Ruby. This was a Hammer film released and distributed by Lippert in the United States.

Verdict: Competent, if unexciting little programmer. **1/2.