Dear Murderer

This suspense thriller from Gainsborough Studios about a successful business man, Lee Warren (Eric Portman), who discovers that his wife is having an affair and decides to kill the cad (Dennis Price) concerned is a British film noir that has many of the ingredients of its American peers but is hobbled by the British fondness for gentlemanly behaviour and an over-indulgence in expository dialogue.

Based on stage play by St.John Legh Clowes and showcasing the lifestyle of the well-to-do Knightsbridge set of the day, it's Hooray Henry stuff with clipped public school accents, silk smoking jackets and silver service at breakfast - until good ol'  working class heroJack Warner turns up as Inspector Penbury with his canny Scotland Yard common sense and smells a rat.

Some of the dialogue and performances are so melodramatic as to be funny with everyone's favourite toff, Dennis Price, and Greta Gynt as the wicked man-eater giving their parts full theatrical flourish whilst Eric Portman as the man who nearly gets away with the perfect murder, plays his part with suitably steely sang-froid.

Director Crabtree, who started his career as a cinematographer, gives the film an fatalistically hermetic feel through the use of low lighting and deep shadows and even if the plot gets a tad out of hand towards the end with a riot of poetic justice that feels overdone, Anglophiles, at least, should find it an engaging film.

 

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