JIGSAW (1962)

JIGSAW (1962). Produced, directed, and written by Val Guest. 

A young woman (Moira Redmond) makes the mistake of telling her unseen lover that she is two months pregnant, and perhaps now would be a good time for him to break from his wife. Unfortunately, this gent has a different idea on his mind. Some time later part of the lady's corpse is found in the garage of a rented house. Detective Fellows (Jack Warner of Dear Murderer) and Detective Wilks (Ronald Lewis) are part of a team assigned to not only find out who killed the woman but who she was. Doing dogged police work (although it seems to take forever for them to bring in someone to work with an identikit) leads to mistaken identities and bum steers. Finally they discover the killer has been hiding in plain sight for quite some time. 

Jigsaw is a very absorbing British police procedural with Warner playing an amiable, highly professional detective. Lewis is also good, but he's always more interesting as a bad guy, such as in Stop Me Before I Kill! Yolande Donlan -- who was married to director Val Guest --  really makes an impression as another woman who dallies with the killer, and there's notable work from Redmond, Michael Goodliffe [The Gorgon], John Barron, John Le Mesurier [Jack the Ripper] and others. This is not another British copy of Psycho and focuses much more on the solving of the crime than it does on the crime itself. Guest also directed The Day the Earth Caught Fire. 

Verdict: Suspenseful British mystery. ***.  

SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER

Maggie Smith as Mrs. Venable

SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER (1993  telefilm). Aired on Performance in the UK and Great Performances in the U.S. Director: Richard Eyre. The original text of the one-act play by Tennessee Williams. 

Violet Venable (Maggie Smith), a very wealthy New Orleans widow, asks to see a well-known neurosurgeon named Dr. Cukrowicz (Rob Lowe) or Dr. Sugar (the translation) in regards to her niece by marriage, Catherine Holly (Natasha Richardson). In exchange for a large grant, Violet hopes that Dr. Sugar will perform a lobotomy on whom she feels is the thoroughly crazy Catherine, who has been telling equally crazy stories about the death of her dear son, Sebastian in the Spanish village of Cabeza del Lobo (wolf's head). These stories also sully the moral character of the dear departed. Meanwhile Catherine's mother (Moira Redmond of Doctor in Love) and brother, George (Richard E. Grant of Can You Ever Forgive Me?) fear that Catherine's story will prevent them from getting $50,000 each in Sebastian's will. 

Mrs. Venable confronts her relatives

With no credited screenwriter I believe this simply uses Tennessee Williams' original text, and has the same combination of grotesqueness and poetry in its story of a highly dysfunctional family, to say the least. As I've already discussed the homoerotic aspects in my review of the 1959 film version, I will concentrate on the acting in this telefilm. Maggie Smith, a better actress than Katharine Hepburn, manages to get across the pain of her son's death and other vulnerable aspects of her character underneath the harsh and desperate exterior, something Hepburn fails to do. Rob Loew offers a professional and sensitive portrait of the doctor. Natasha Richardson is clearly a more gifted actress than Elizabeth Taylor, although she plays the role quite differently, without Taylor's almost hysterical urgency but with a more shattered resignation. The other cast members all acquit themselves quite nicely, but one has to wonder if this production was worth the time and effort when one considers the play itself. Smith, however, is alone worth the price of admission. 

Verdict: Decent, very well-acted version of a dated and half-baked play with some fascinating aspects. **1/2. 

NIGHTMARE (1964)

NIGHTMARE (1964). Director: Freddie Francis. Produced and written by Jimmy Sangster.

"You may have been all kinds of a gay boy before, but now you're married to me!"

Janet (Jennie Linden) is a screwed up teenager who saw her deranged mother stab her father to death. She has always been afraid that her mother's psychosis is hereditary, and she may be right. Returning home from school to the family manor, she is welcomed by her guardian, Henry Baxter (David Knight), and her companion, Grace Maddox (Moira Redmond of Doctor in Love). Janet has intense and realistic dreams in which she is tormented by a weird, scarred woman who is utterly silent and menacing. Then one afternoon she sees this same woman while awake ... The main twist of the film occurs halfway through the movie and isn't that much of a surprise [and probably wasn't meant to be], but the second half still sustains a modicum of suspense. This is another of the British thrillers made in the wake of Psycho [both post-Psycho and sub-Psycho], and it's reasonably entertaining if ultimately forgettable. There are couple of somewhat energetic stabbing sequences [neither in the shower, thank goodness]. The performances from all are quite good, with Redmond chewing the scenery in dramatic fashion [only over-acting on occasion] and Knight a bit more suave and restrained. There's an awful lot of hysterical screeching throughout. From Hammer studios.

Verdict: Like a lengthy Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode. **1/2.

DOCTOR IN LOVE

Michael Craig sports a gal's seal of approval

DOCTOR IN LOVE (1960). Director: Ralph Thomas.

"You're the least incompetent of this cretinous bunch in the slaughterhouse."

After falling for a nurse named Florence Nightingale (Moria Redmond) who disappears, Dr. Richard Hare (Michael Craig) and buddy Tony Burke (Leslie Phillips) leave the confines of St. Swithin's Hospital and the grumpy Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice) and look for greener pastures. First they participate as test subjects in clinical studies of the common cold, but get thrown out when they fool around with two drunken strippers. Then Hare winds up working with the established Dr. Cardew (Nicholas Phipps, who also wrote the screenplay), but has to hire a doctor assistant when Cardew goes off for a few weeks to America. Dr. Nicola Barrington (Virginia Maskell) takes over for Burke after the latter breaks his arm. Richard and Nicola fall in love, but there are still a few pitfalls to overcome. For this installment of the British "doctor" series, Michael Craig takes over from Dirk Bogarde, who usually played the lead in these things as "Simon Sparrow," but Craig is not playing the same role. Craig is no Cary Grant, but he's not bad in the part. James Robertson Justice is sort of the poor man's Monte Woolly, but he has his moments; Redmond and Maskell are attractive and competent. Some of the supporting players almost steal the show: Reginald Beckwith as Wildwood, Cardew's butler; Ambrosine Phillpotts as Lady Spratt; Ronnie Stevens as Harold, who's finally reached puberty at age 28; Carole Lesley as the adorable "Kitten" Strudwick whom the lucky Harold snares; and Fenella Fielding as the bosomy Mrs. Tadwich who has palpitations, especially when the handsome Hare is examining her. A sequence in which Hare tries to get a new serum to save a little boy's life is melodramatic and unconvincing, as is the scene when Nicola spots a lipstick print on Richard's face and reacts as if she found him in bed with a boy! (The fact that she gets so jealous over a mere thank-you kiss doesn't portend well for the marriage.) Whatever its flaws, the movie is often quite amusing and in general good-natured (with a few tasteless lapses). Craig made Mysterious Island the following year. Maskell was with Peter Sellers in Only Two Can Play and Moria Redmond appeared in A Shot in the Dark. Fielding was the voice of the loudspeaker on the TV show The Prisoner and is currently on the series Skins. Phillpotts was in A Room at the Top and Berserk with Joan Crawford. Phillips is a very busy actor up until today. Perhaps the funniest thing about the movie is that the young doctors are named Burke and Hare after the grave robbers!

Verdict: Amiable silliness with an attractive cast and some very good performances. ***.