British Cinema – Crime
& Noir (Blackout/Home To Danger/Meet
Mr. Callaghan/Bond Of Fear/No Trace/Recoil/VCI DVD Set) + Campbell’s
Kingdom (Network U.K./Region Two/2/PAL DVD)
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: C Films: B-/C
Note: While the VCI set is Region 1/NTSC, Campbell’s Kingdom is a Region 2/PAL
DVD that can only be operated on machines capable of playing back DVDs that can
handle Region Two/2/PAL format software and can be ordered from our friends at
Network U.K. at the website addresses provided at the end of the review.
One of the things I enjoy about DVD, especially in its
later years, is that all the companies in the marketplace are now digging
deeper than ever for new material to issue that is not available, has not been
for many years and in some cases, is long overdue. VCI is one of the companies best at this all
along and among their releases have been a recent cycle of British B-movies
that have gone unseen in the U.S. since at least the 1970s. Their new British Cinema – Crime & Noir DVD set offers
six very pleasant, exceptional thrillers that are real Noirs (all made before
1958) and have the look and darkness, often along with the thematics that make
them true Noirs. We will also compare to
a color feature at the time from Network DVD in the U.K., Campbell’s Kingdom.
Besides
the quality of the work in the VCI collection, they turn out to be films of
note because of the people who made them behind the scenes. This will become apparent as each film is
described.
Blackout (1950) was directed by producer
Robert S. Baker, who made many such films in both capacities before moving on
to TV success with The Baron and
especially the hit series The Saint
and Return Of The Saint, all
reviewed elsewhere on this site. This
tale of a blind man (Maxwell Reed) who suddenly gets his site back after coming
across a dead body and some killers is a tight noir thriller that has suspense
and solid acting, including the great Eric Pohlmann (who moved on to usually
play the villain in many a spy film and TV show, thanks in part to friends like
Baker) as the main heavy. A very
impressive film, it was written by John Gilling (who later wrote for The Saint, The Champions and Department
S) and has co-producer Monty Norman as its Director of Photography. Norman became producer on most of the ITC hit
action/spy shows that he usually co-created with Dennis Spooner.
Home To Danger (1951) is an early film by the
great journeyman director Terrance Fisher, known for his many Hammer Horror
films and other thrillers, this is one of his best as a drug dealer tires to
kill the daughter of his dead partner when the deceased’s daughter inherits his
house. Helping is a solid script by Ian
Stuart Black (The Saint, Dr. Who, Star Maidens) that also has plenty of suspense and action. Guy Rolfe is good as the lead.
Meet Mr. Callaghan (1954) was a solid attempt to
launch a movie series franchise with Derrick De Marney as Peter Cheyney’s hard
boiled private eye Slim Callaghan, once played by no less than Michael
Rennie. Though it did not work out, the
film is fun, just Noir enough to qualify and was shot by no less than Director
of Photography Harry Waxman. Adrienne
Corri also stars. Note that Cheyney had
also created Lemmy Caution, another hardboiled detective played for decades by
Eddie Constantine, most famously in Jean Luc-Godard’s Alphaville (1965).
Bond Of Fear (1956) offers another Gilling
script in a clever (and lower budgeted) variant on William Wyler’s VistaVision
thriller The Desperate Hours (1955,
also reviewed on this site) as a criminal on the loose takes a nice suburban
family hostage. This time, instead of
taking place in their big, expensive home, it takes place in their vacation
trailer. The results are very good and
John Colicos is a good villain; a role he would repeat well throughout his
career. Dermot Walsh, Jane Barrett and
Alan MacNaughton also star.
No Trace (1950) is another Noir involving
Gilling and Baker, but this time, Baker wrote it and Gilling directs this
effective story of a mystery writer (Hugh Sinclair, who twice played The Saint
at RKO years before the TV show) who kills a black mailer and intends to get
away with it, but it will not be that simple.
Berman co-produced this slick offering that shows Sinclair could have
continued as Simon Templar if RKO had let him and also features an early Barry
Morse (The Fugitive, The Adventurer, Space: 1999) as a police officer.
Recoil (1953) rounds out the set with
Gilling writing and directing this story of a woman (Jean Talbot again)
pretending to be a criminal to catch the men who killed her father, a
jeweler. Producer Baker did the
cinematography and it is as suspenseful as the other films. When you finish watching the films by this
team, you’ll understand how they had the talent to innovate TV and genres no
matter where they worked. Kieron Moore
and Elizabeth Sellars also star.
In
contrast, Ralph Thomas’ Campbell’s
Kingdom (1957) has Dirk Bogarde as the title character with six moths to
live, travelling to the Canadian Rockies to take over land his grandfather left
him and dealing with people trying to stop his total claim or the fact that
grandpa believed there is oil in the land.
With no one apparently known how to drain him sideways (no milkshake references
here) but Stanley Baker is the bad guy, Barbara Murray “the girl” and the cast
is rounded out by Michael Craig, Jon Laurie, Stanley Maxted and Robert
Brown. Though ambitious, it is also too
melodramatic for its own good and sometimes tires too hard, but it has a few
interesting moments just the same. Thomas
moved on to play Bulldog Drummond in two films that tried to revive the
character in the Bond-era: Deadlier Than
The Male and Some Girls Do.
The 1.33
X 1 black & white image in all cases on the VCI set are a little soft, but
Black is solid even when detail is an issue.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 Campbell was shot in by the great Director of Photography Ernest
Stewart (The Avengers, Fu Manchu and
Bulldog Drummond franchises in the 1960s) making this look good, but despite
being a new HD transfer, the color is inconsistent and problematic
throughout. Too bad, because despite an
older color format, this looks like it could be good from some of the shots. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is dated in all
cases and seems a generation or tow down, depending on the film, but are all
audible enough to enjoy. Extras are
absent on the VCI set, but the Network disc has three image galleries.
As noted above, you can order the Campbell’s Kingdom PAL DVD import exclusively from Network U.K. at:
http://www.networkdvd.net/
or
www.networkdvd.co.uk
- Nicholas Sheffo
