Hammer the Toff

Pete Cheyney's gentleman sleuth continues - in the words of an unbilled Charles Hawtrey - "his private war against crime", taking in his stride attempts on his life by goons in the employ of an arch villain after the usual secret formula.

Valentine Dyall returns as Inspector Grice of the Yard along with Roddy Hughes as Jolly, Wally Patch as Bert and John Powe (who died before it was released) as Flatty. John Bentley in the lead, however, gets a new bright-eyed and bushy-tailed leading lady in the form of Patricia Dainton, whose uncle is played by Ian Fleming. (No! not that one!)

John Bentley is the Toff, an aristocratic private eye -- he goes by "the Honorable Richard Rollinson" who encounter Patricia Dainton at a fancy hotel. She has just received a greeting card from her late uncle. Meanwhile, a criminal who is called the Hammer wants her uncle's formula for a metal; it's the usual scientific bafflegab used by writers in search of a Maguffin. The police are tracking down the Hammer, because he has just committed a murder. Previously he had used the same hammer for smash and grab jobs, which he then distributed among the poor of London's East End.

It's based on one of more than five hundred novels by John Creasey, and the director is quota quicky specialist Maclean Rogers. Shot at Nettleford Studio -- I noticed several sets from the Alastair Sim SCROOGE -- it's an efficiently directed second feature that tries to play off Bentley's and Miss Dainton's appearances in the "Temple Drake" mysteries.

It's a far more nuanced view of the police and their relationship with ordinary people than one usually gets from the movies. Certainly the people of the East End in this movie don't look on the coppers as their friends. Other than that, it's another of the approximately ten thousand mysteries the movies offered their audiences; and a fairly run mystery at that.

Apparently, a toff is someone from the upper class. In this case, richard rollison. He is a detective in his spare time, just for the fun of it, and decides to help a young lady he meets on a train. When the killers shoot at them and miss. When "the hammer" starts knocking people off, toff gets the coppers involved. And then, as they follow the clues, they are just all over the place. In a boxing ring, on a boat. On a train. In a hotel. And is there more than one killer named hammer? It all gets pretty confusing, but we do finally make it to the end. If you don't think too hard about it. A citizen solves crimes... angela style. Directed by maclean rogers, for nettlefold films. See wikipedia dot org for more info on the history of nettlefold. That story is about as interesting as this plot!

This adaptation of the book by John Creasey (who wrote 600+ novels) is very faithful to the original. While there is certainly something very Saintesque in the Toff, Creasey makes the character his own, lifting the Robin Hood motif a notch above the others popular in that era.

The Toff is a Saint knockoff. Hammer the Toff is cheap B movie that looks more like a quota quickie but with better production values.

Richard Rollison is the Toff. An aristocratic and well connected amateur crime fighter. He is friends with Inspector Grice (Valentine Dyall) and East End pub owner Bert Ebbut who has links with the criminal side of life.

Rollison has a calling card of the Toff. A caricature of a man in top hat, monocle, and smoking a cigarette in a holder.

In this movie Rollison meets Susan Lancaster in a train compartment and soon her uncle, a scientist is found dead. The culprit is a character called the Hammer.

Rollison tracks down the Hammer but discovers this is a Robin Hood type person and could not had killed Susan's uncle.

Maybe someone has taken the Hammer's identity or just trying to blame him.

An unpretentious and simple plot. This is a no frills and no fuss movie. The music is irritating, the story is creaky with not much action.

There is an appearance by Charles Hawtrey.