Hidden Homicide

A novelist, Michael Cornforth (Griffin Jones) goes to bed in London and wakes up with a gun in his hand in his cousin's country cottage. Walking around, he finds his cousin in a kitchen closet.

Two women appear at the door, soaked from the rain, asking to come in. One of the women goes into the kitchen for tea and drops something on the floor. Looking for a broom, she finds the body, screams, and faints.

Michael attempts to explain the situation to Jean Gilson (Patricia Laffan). For some reason, she believes him. This is a major hole in the story - there is no explanation for her behavior.

Michael's investigation, with the help of Jean and a friend, reporter Bill Dodd (Bruce Seton), puts him on the trail of his cousin's wife, who supposedly is in Australia. Since Michael is in line to inherit, and since someone is trying to frame him, this is perhaps about money.

These B noirs were part of a quota system in British film. It's not bad; in fact, there are some fun scenes. There's a neat twist, actually a double twist, at the end.

"Cornforth" (Griffiths Jones) wakes up, fully clothed, in a strange house in the middle of nowhere. He has no idea how he got there, nor why he has a gun in his hand and why... wait for it... there is a corpse in the kitchen. To add to his confusion, he is joined by two rain-soaked backpackers - "Jean" (Patricia Laffan) and "Marian" (Maya Koumani). When they discover his secret they try to skedaddle only to be prevented from doing so by their befuddled host. What now ensues is really a rather daft murder mystery that involves him and the now somewhat miraculously convinced "Jean" returning to London where they try to get to the bottom of this increasingly far-fetched conundrum. It is pretty obvious - once we are back in civilisation and amongst a cast that includes the usually reliable Bruce Seton and the plummy, easy on the eye, James Kenney - who is behind the crime, even though the motive remains curiously elusive right until the last few scenes. It's not the worst, it's clearly just a job of work for all concerned with an unremarkable script and some equally forgettable performances that passes an hour or so, but not in any way remotely memorable.

This could have been a good film if it had been handled correctly. Trouble is, it wasn't. The plot idea is pretty fair but it's let down by poor writing, very wooden acting (apart from Bruce Seton) and just about everything else.

There's nothing hidden about the homicide they inflicted on this one. Don't bother.

What would you do if you woke up in a strange house, not knowing how you got there, with a pistol in your hand and your cousin's body stuffed into a cupboard? If you're Griffith Jones, you talk Patricia Laffan, who knocks on your door, and your reporter friend, Bruce Seton, into helping you hunt for the killer without informing the authorities. They get wind of it soon enough anyway, when Charles Farrell, the antiques restorer and forger across the way also turns up dead.

It's a decently directed and telegraphically plotted murder mystery directed by Terrence Young. It's an efficiently produced second feature, with everyone running around London and the exurban areas, with a nice twist ending, and decent actors. Even so, it works out to be little more than a decent time-waster, although cinematographer Ernest Palmer -- the British one, just as it's the British Farrell in the cast -- gets some good night shooting at the end. It was the end of Palmer's career; he would light one more movie (the appropriately named THE CROWNING TOUCH) and retire. He died in 1964, age 63.

Hitchcock would have loved this plot and would surely have made something great of it, with all its kinky sexy problems, with all this double play, with all this ghost parade of the past with an unresolved murder four years ago, and a very innocent man in the middle of it, being tucked into it and drowned in murders around him, a typical Hitchcock hero of an ordinary man being forced into intrigues which he can't understand the slightest detail of. And who would in his place? If you some time have woken up somewhere without an inkling of an idea where you are or why or how or whatever got you into this position, you will understand the case of the poor Griffith Jones and his awful predicament. Fortunately there is a rather matter-of-fact lady with a stiff upper lip to make an effort of helping him out, while his great aid in this inextricable situation is his old friend Bill Seton, a crime reporter, who seems to know exactly how to deal with a hopeless business. The plot is intricate, far-fetched, hopelessly bizarre but actually makes sense in all its crooked ways, and at least the three searchers will be relieved to finally find out that they were chasing too many ghosts while only one was real. 70 minutes is too little for a complex intrigue like this, you easily drop out and miss important details, it is too compressed for a great thriller, while more space would have provided the audience with better possibilities of reflection and understanding.