kidboots After years of wartime austerity, picture going resumed in Britain in a big way with the spectacular success of "The Wicked Lady", a Technicolour costume extravaganza. But strangely another genre to find favour was the psychological crime film and no actor could create quiet menace, the type that simmers under a surface of normality quite like Eric Portman. His smooth speech usually meant he was often able to fool everyone and get away with murder - until the last reel. In this film he plays Victor James Colebrook, a man who seems to hold everything under control but is still capable of violent outbursts. Only his mother seems worried about his moods - his father had been a notorious hangman whose mind snapped and ever afterwards was only happy when he was carrying out his grisly occupation. Victor has inherited the madness and as the film opens he is already stalking his latest victim. He is engaged to a sweet girl, Anne (Dulcie Grey) who works in a music store but the first scenes show her meeting someone else - a love struck bus driver, Jack (Derek Farr) and she has fallen for him as well.The film explored many avenues, it was moodily atmospheric with director Laurence Huntingdon taking full advantage of Eric Portman's deep moods and mask like face. Has some very Hitchcockian moments, I wondered if Hitchcock had seen this movie when he planned "Strangers on a Train" and the eerie carnival and island sequences of that movie? In one scene Victor is in a mist enshrouded park with a naïve Irish girl but just after he kills her an American serviceman and his girl come across them. With the deepening fog he is able to shield his identity while offering the asked for matches. Then there was the orderly view of police procedure - Stanley Holloway in a rare straight role as the constable who makes the connection between Colebrook and his notorious father!!With a climax resembling "The Blue Lamp" - the police pinpoint Colebrook and his next victim in Hyde Park and begin a no-nonsense public exodus of the grounds. Dulcie Grey who had scored a critical success in her last film "They Were Sisters" was amazed to find herself dropped after the studio felt her portrayal was too realistic!! Soon after Eric Portman requested her to co-star with him in "Wanted for Murder" and, according to Miss Grey, he was a "darling"!!Highly Recommended.

manuel-pestalozzi This is a truly memorable movie. Not for its story which is pretty pedestrian but for its treatment by the screen writers, the actresses and actors, its cinematography and its art direction. My first surprise came with the title credits. Emeric Pressburger participated in the screen writing. And this seems to be one of the rare cases in which the screen writing is better than the general plot. There are a great many interesting characters which are competently and nicely sketched. The actresses and actors grace the script with very good, heart felt and often funny performances down to the last bit part (and there are many of them). They portray ordinary people who just want to be decent - and ordinary. The movie is set in post war London and the number of sets and location shots is astounding considering the simplicity of the whole affair. The apartment of the villain is in a fine town house, and it looks like it was shot on location, so it must also be a feast for friends of architecture. Watching this movie is anything but a waste of time! Again and again I become enraptured by British films which were made during the period of Austerity (The Archers, Ealing Studio, Carol Reed etc.). I always feel that lack of funds was more than compensated by the love all those who participated felt for their art.

Alex da Silva Eric Portman (Viktor) is the grandson of a notorious hangman. His grandfather's sadistic, psychotic reputation as a killer plays heavily on Portman's psyche. Actually, it does more than that - it influences his behaviour. However, he is unable to change who he is. A serial killer is at large murdering women and goading the police. Can Roland Culver (Inspector Conway) and his team prevent the killer from striking again and again....? This film contains some dodgy accents, in particular, a very posh bus driver as played by Derek Farr (Jack) and a young Scottish woman, Jenny Laird (Jeannie), who comes from absolutely nowhere in Scotland. There are humorous moments eg, Stanley Holloway's portrayal of "Sgt Sullivan" and Gerard Kempinski as a waiter, alongside tense dramatic sections, eg, the murder of Jenny Laird (Jeannie) in the park. I found Barbara Everest as "Mrs Colebrooke" slightly weird b t it's a minor point in an otherwise convincing tale of a killer who is born to kill. We are left in no doubt as to who the killer is from the beginning and this adds to the tension throughout the film. I thought that the killer's fate was rather convenient - an easy way to end the film - but it's still a good film.

stills-6 It's all very nicely done. I had barely, if ever, heard of any of the leads in this movie before I saw it. I was expecting a sloppy film noir set in London, but it was a pleasant surprise when the dialogue and the players were as good as they are. The story is tight, mostly, and there is real tension and unexpected humor. Overall, it was very effective.I was particularly impressed with Eric Portman as Colebrooke. There was not much of a tradition playing sociopaths at this point in the movies. Of the few that had been portrayed, Cagney in "White Heat", for example, is much more histrionic and obvious than Portman is here.I might quibble with some plot points and some really heavy-handed staging, but really this is much like middle Hitchcock without all of the psychological mumbo-jumbo to push it along.