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. ***.  

THE SECRET PLACE

THE SECRET PLACE (1957). Director: Clive Donner.

Gerry Carter (Ronald Lewis) is the head of a gang planning a diamond heist. Knowing that a little boy, Freddie (Michael Brooke), has a crush on Gerry's girlfriend, Molly (Belinda Lee), he asks her to importune Freddie to "borrow" his father's cop uniform. This all leads to numerous complications. The best thing about The Secret Place is the robbery itself, which is quite suspenseful and well-handled. Unfortunately, the bulk of the movie is turned over to a lot of running around after the boy through "secret places." The performances are good, with the very talented little Brooke taking top honors, although Lewis is sharp, as usual, and Michael Gwynn [Never Take Candy from a Stranger] scores as Steve, an associate of Gerry's. Belinda Lee [Blackout] is not bad as Molly, and neither is David McCallum [The Man from U.N.C.L.E.] as her rather weird brother. But this falls apart because the second half drags so much and has little suspense.

Verdict: One half of a good crime thriller. **1/2.

STOP ME BEFORE I KILL!

STOP ME BEFORE I KILL! (1960). Director: Val Guest.

Race car driver Alan Colby (Ronald Lewis of Scream of Fear) is still recovering from a very serious highway accident and is on vacation with his wife, Denise (Diane Cilento of The Third Secret). Alan loves Denise, but has recurring feelings that he may harm or even kill her due to a neurotic nature he can't control. Denise seeks help from slimy psychiatrist David Prade (Claude Dauphin), whom most people wouldn't buy a used car from or anything else. Can Prade get to the root of Alan's psychological problems before disaster occurs? Stop Me Before I Kill! features a fine lead performance from Lewis, and a notable supporting performance from Francoise Rosay [September Affair] as David's mother -- the others are not bad, either -- but it's slowww, long, stagy and talky, and would have been better off as a half hour TV episode, although the "twist" in this can be seen coming practically from the first. An honest-to-goodness plot never really develops.

Verdict: A Hammer thriller that bores much more than it thrills. **.

MR. SARDONICUS

MR. SARDONICUS (1961). Director: William Castle.

 

In the TV show Wiseguy, an entire story arc centered around a nutty guy who was obsessed with the film Mr. Sardonicus, and who ran screenings of it over and over again. That alone created a kind of mystique around the picture, which is based on a novella by Ray Russell, who also wrote the screenplay. Castle directed this film right after Homicidal, and introduces this movie as well. But the film is quite different, a rather intelligent Gothic horror story that is well-acted and has many fascinatingly macabre and ironic touches. A specialist named Robert Cargrave (Ronald Lewis of Scream of Fear) is importuned by an old girlfriend to come to her husband's castle with utmost speed. It appears that hubby, who has rechristened himself "Mr. Sardonicus" (Guy Rolfe) after a medical condition, is horribly disfigured and Cargrave is his last hope. Sardonicus is a cruel man, and Cargrave is to discover that his assignment is fraught with peril. Rolfe and Lewis are fine, but Oscar Homolka pretty much steals the picture as the sinister servant Krull, who always carries out Sardonicus' orders. Audrey Dalton as the bride of Sardonicus proves once again that she is a very uneven actress. 

Verdict: Good show! ***.

SCREAM OF FEAR aka TASTE OF FEAR

SCREAM OF FEAR (1961). Also known as Taste of Fear. Director: Seth Holt.

Penny (Susan Strasberg) arrives in France to live with her stepmother Jane (Ann Todd) and her father, whom she hasn't seen in ten years. She is befriended by the handsome chauffeur, Bob (Ronald Lewis), who kindly listens to her tales of strange goings on in the villa, including sightings-by-night of her father's dead body. Could her stepmother be cooking something up with the doctor (Christopher Lee) who frequently comes to dinner? This is a nice, suspenseful thriller with several neat twists, courtesy of screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, and good acting from the leads. While the story may not hold up under close scrutiny, it makes for an effective mystery, with a nifty sequence in a pool.

Verdict: You may not scream but it is entertaining nevertheless. ***.