Dinosaur Films - September 2010 Magazine
As autumn draws in, settle down to enjoy some treasures from the summer of British films David Moore email

Reviews . . . Main Feature . . Puzzle Picture. . Rarities . . Back Room Boys. . Merton Park film review . . Merton Park Studios . . New Elstree Studios

Southall Studios site

Philips Broadcast of 1938 (1938, director: George Pal) An interesting short, ingenious animation featuring Bert Ambrose's band. The first brief number is A Jacket of Blue, a Mexican rumba. Then the fine number Harbour Lights, with a striking night scene of a couple dancing, echoes of Busby Berkeley. Finally Rhythm OK in Harlem has a busy street scene with dancers swaying to Ambrose's hot music. An unexpected little gem, wonderfully evocative of the 1930's

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Merton Park Films A review of one of the films made at this SW19 studio. COUNTERSPY (1953) starring Dermot Walsh and Hazel Court Directed by Vernon Sewell. A slow moving film with an abundance of semi-wooden lines and characters performing slightly inexplicable actions. Nothing too bad, but that sums Counterspy up- bland. Uninspired even. Mild mannered Mr Manning (Dermot Walsh) has arrived to audit the books of Trident Marine Engineering. He works slowly, methodically, and all the while fishy things seem to be going on in the background. A 'message' is brought by a Patrick Johnson for the boss, Paulson. When someone tries to run down this Johnson, Paulson claims not to know the man, even though he'd been seen talking with him earlier. "There are some very queer goings-on," Manning confides to his wife later, "no, not that sort of queer." Then a further mystery when a woman calls to get the 'message' back. To Manning she spins a yarn about Paulson blackmailing her. Manning falls for it and helps himself to the packet and delivers it to her flat where of course he stumbles over a corpse- that of the shadowy Johnson, drowned in the bath. Deciding to open the packet he finds it contains pictures and some sort of formula. Leaving by the back window, he's spotted by the brutish Rex (improbably played by Bill Travers) and is taken for questioning. But he's managed to post the packet addressed to his home, in a letter box. Manning is interrogated by a Foreign Agent (Alexander Gauge) who wants those documents. Two employees of Trident rescue him but his wife (Hazel Court) has now got the packet and has taken it to work with her- she's a dancer in the chorus. Fortunately the police contact her and she agrees to give the packet to her husband that evening at the shortly to be closed Festival Gardens. However the police prove rather dim and Manning eludes them, as he believes he's wanted for the murder of Johnson. Too late, he realises that those who have aided his escape are the foreign spies. The convoluted plot is explained to Mrs Manning ("dear me!"), and usefully to us also, and she agrees to another police plan, to do whatever the spies tell her if they contact her. They do, and she is driven to the sanatorium where her husband is being held. Manning has been placed on the operating table to make him talk, but fortunately the police this time have proved more adept at tailing Mrs M and there's a showdown in the operating theatre- a rather meaningless finale. To Film Menu . . . . . Back Room Boys - Maurice Elvey (1887-1967) It's good to report an increasing interest in the work of this British director. Hopefully it's not just because he directed more feature films than any other UK director (over 200 including some in Hollywood, Italy France and Germany). Nor because he directed the first UK colour movie in 1939, Sons of the Sea. In fact he had started directing before the First War in the silent era, and he directed numerous shorts as well as full length features. Many have said he produced some real rubbish during the boom of the British cinema in the Fifties, but I totally disagree. Elvey was particularly adept at directing light comedies with pace and fun, as can be seen in the excellent adaptation of Brian Rix's stage play Dry Rot. The essence of the play is there, but there's a seamless transition to film with some fast moving chase scenes at the start and finish. Nor was Elvey incapable of directing a thriller, infusing it with tension and sinister shadows, no better illustrated than in the moody House of Blackmail. So don't neglect his work! I've yet to see one of his 'bad' films, but perhaps that's tempting fate! Some of my favourites by Elvey are: 1936: Man in the Mirror, a neat little comedy with a double role for Edward Everett Horton 1939: Sons of the Sea, starring the always watchable Leslie Banks, set in a naval college 1942: Salute John Citizen, a wartime flag waver 1951: The Late Edwina Black, a neat murder mystery 1953: House of Blackmail, a fine film noir thriller with William Sylvester 1954: The Harassed Hero, amateurish but fun little comedy 1956: Dry Rot (his penultimate film), a fine adaption of a stage farce with Brian Rix His picture comes from an appearance in the BBC tv series Picture Parade To Film Menu

My Film Reviews-
CROOKS TOUR (1940, directed by John Baxter, Rock Studios Elstree, 4*)- The characters of Charters and Caldicot were too good to waste, but Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne look to me less comfortable than in The Lady Vanishes, for they are now the stars, trying to wrestle some fun out of a tale of Nazi spies. Our British public school boys become the unwitting tools transporting secret Nazi information stored on a gramophone record from Bagdad to Istanbul. Here there's a failed attempt to bump our heroes off, then again in Budapest where 'La Thingummy,' a singer (Greta Gynt) is found alone in Caldicot's room, "good heavens...it's not playing the game, I can't put it stronger than that." Despite their stiff upper lip bungling, and a face to face civilised meal with Nazi agent K7, they survive a firing squad in another British victory over the Nazis.
Best propaganda is playing the Nazi record at half speed, a ludicrous effect. Greta Gynt ("very attractive girl you know") sings It's Written In Your Eyes, One Night of Heaven With You, and Gypsy Lover. She also dances the Dance of the Three or Four Veils
BACK ROOM BOY(1942, directed by Herbert Mason, Islington Studios, 5*)- An uncredited Philip Friend introduces a man performnig a vital function at the BBC, making sure the pips are pressed on time. After he gets the pip, he is transferred to a lonely Scottish lighthouse where "they all go mad." Here are all the traditional ghostly happenings, but it's endearingly done with Arthur finding a cheeky foil in young Jane (Vera Frances). Perhaps it's Arthur's dialogue with his lonely self that makes the charm, until that is the place is overrun with women, and enlivened by Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. The mystery of the disappearing guests is all to do with the war in a protracted flag waving ending. The running Scottish gag, Och Aye, I liked, plus this snippet of dialogue:
Moore Marriott: "I remember this lighthouse when I was a boy."
Arthur: "Did they have lighthouses then?"
NO TRACE (1950, directed by John Gilling, Alliance Studios, 5*)- Robert, a successful crime author (Hugh Sinclair) is blackmailed by Fenton (Michael Brennan) and when the latter gets predictably greedy, Robert borrows the plot of his novel No Trace, donning a beard and boldly going to Fenton's digs to stab him, then to promptly disappear. The "competent but unimaginative" police inspector (John Laurie) and his assistant (Barry Morse) enlist Robert in their investigations, though Robert's secretary Linda (Dinah Sheridan) somehow achieves better results on her own. Thus we end with the classic scene of the vulnerable Linda at the mercy of the murderer, "I'm sorry Linda." Though Robert had planned that perfect crime his downfall was one "unpredictable" occurrence
THE HARASSED HERO (1954 directed by Maurice Elvey, Nettlefold Studios, 3*) - Hypochondriacs are always good comedy fodder, here it's one Selwyn (Guy Middleton), who despite being ordered complete rest, runs into too much excitement when he stumbles across a briefcase full of forged banknotes. The crooks, led by Logan (the commanding presence of Elwyn Brook-Jones) naturally want their printing plates back, and they have a long and occasionally amusing chase after them. With Selwyn cured, thanks to a romance with his Nurse Brooks, there's drama as she is kidnapped by Logan, "unless he gives me the plates, he's never going to see you again." But of course, Selwyn does. The best cameo is from Joss Ambler as a laughing forgetful doctor
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Rarities

Brief details of films I have not seen. I'd like to thank Mike Taylor for introducing me to it this very month

Fire Maidens from Outer Space

British 1956 sci-fi nonsense about a space expedition that lands on a moon of Jupiter to encounter a bevy of beautiful girls all looking for mates.
A host of starlets played the girls including Jan Holden. I'd like to see Harry Fowler's reaction to this happy situation, though by all accounts the film wouldn't be missed by many!

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The Main Feature:

THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE
(1947, directed by Cavalcanti, Alliance Studios Hammersmith, 3*).

Warner Brothers were renowned for their pre-war gritty gangster films, and here they attempted to bring the genre to post-war Britain. The problem with this film is that it really lacks the Warner glorification of the gangster, getting lost in its overpowering realism and unrelieved gloom of black marketeers with no glimpse of goodness at all. Maybe Film Noir does need just a little light in the shade, so showing up the darkness. Nevertheless, this film set crime film standards that many sought to emulate and indeed the night photography and the sets are the most impressive part of the film.
Griffith Jones, against type, plays Cockney gang leader Narcy, who is attracted by the idea of employing the once slightly upper crust Clem (Trevor Howard), an ex-RAF type missing the thrill of the war. But the two are ideallistically poles apart, and Narcy falls out with Clem, framing him. Clem winds up in jail.
And so we reach Warner's spiritual home, prison. The quarry is the location for the traditional jailbreak, though no wailing sirens here. Pursued across Dartmoor, Clem gets a lucky break with a change of clothing, as inexorably he moves towards London and revenge. In the big city, his ally is Sally, Clem's dumped girl (Sally Gray) who patches Clem's wounds and loans him ten bob. After delving in dark alleys, the police pick Clem up, but then let him go as bait to catch the evil Narcy, who displays all his nasty cunning by using Sally as a shield. The final rooftop fight is something of a classic.

My favourite quotes from the film:
"Next time you want to play with fire, use a matchbox instead!"
Clem to Sally, "I wish I'd met you when I was at Sunday School."

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Puzzle Picture No.5
Can you identify the artist from the clues below?
The less clues you need before you look up the answer, the higher your Dinosaur Film rating!

Click here when you want to uncover his identity.

Born 1913, died 1981.

Most of his roles always seemed to be as a villain, for example in The Runaway Bus (1954), and Passport to Pimlico (1949).

He started in films in 1948 (Noose, uncredited), and two years earlier in tv.

He wrote the play Goodnight Mrs Puffin.

A Londoner, he often played Cockney types.

Other memorable minor roles included Jones in Crooks Anonymous (1962) and Syd in Naked Fury (1959).

His final appearances were on tv as Grandad in Now and Then.

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It's Arthur Lovegrove
Return to puzzle

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