Third Time Lucky ** (1949, Dermot Walsh, Glynis Johns) – Classic Movie Review 13,603

Dermot Walsh stars as a compulsive gambler who falls in love with a woman (Glynis Johns), and believes she is bringing him luck, in the 1949 British crime drama film Third Time Lucky. Alas, luck is no lady.

Director Gordon Parry’s 1949 British crime drama film Third Time Lucky is based on Gerald Butler’s novel They Cracked Her Glass Slipper, and stars Glynis Johns, Dermot Walsh, Charles Goldner, Harcourt Williams, Yvonne Owen, Helen Haye, and Sebastian Cabot. It is made by Mario Zampi Productions (as Anglofilm) and released by General Film Distributors (UK) in January 1949.

Third Time Lucky is a tolerable postwar 1940s thriller, with Dermot Walsh as a compulsive gambler whose name of Lucky hasn’t made him lucky enough. He takes on simple-minded young woman Joan Burns (Glynis Johns) as a lucky mascot, but then a rival gambler who has set out to ruin him falls in love with her.

The handling and playing are extremely modest and insufficiently passionate, but the plotting in Gerald Butler’s screenplay from his own novel keeps up a reasonable level of involvement.

The cast are Glynis Johns, Dermot Walsh, Charles Goldner, Harcourt Williams, Yvonne Owen, Helen Haye, Sebastian Cabot, Harold Berens, John Stuart, Ballard Berkeley, Bruce Walker, Marianne Deeming, Millicent Wolf, Jean Short, Edna Kaye, Jack Tottenham, Tom Block, and Michael Hordern in a small uncredited role as second doctor.

It was shot at Twickenham Film Studios and Southall Studios in West London.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,603

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