The Impersonator *** (1961, John Crawford, Jane Griffiths, Patricia Burke, John Salew, John Dare) – Classic Movie Review 13,766

The 1961 black and white British second feature murder thriller film The Impersonator stars John Crawford, Jane Griffiths, Patricia Burke and John Salew. Nightmarishly, the killer is a pantomime dame playing Mother Goose!

Co-writer/ director Alfred Shaughnessy’s 1961 low-budget black and white British second feature murder thriller film The Impersonator stars John Crawford, Jane Griffiths, Patricia Burke, John Salew, John Dare, and John Arnatt. Nightmarishly, the killer is a pantomime dame playing Mother Goose! And the victim is the nice mother of a nice little boy who adores Mother Goose and also unknowingly holds the clue to the murderer’s identity. The dim police and the prejudiced English locals of course have the wrong man in their sights: a foreigner, an American!

John Salew plays a prowling killer, a pantomime dame who attacks and kills a woman (Patricia Burke) in a park at a British small town and the finger of suspicion points to American airman Jimmy Bradford (John Crawford), who an English teacher, Ann Loring (Jane Griffiths) was supposed to link up with but missed. 

Just before Christmas, in a small English town full of smug, prejudiced people, a brisk, pleasant schoolmistress (Jane Griffiths) meets a sprightly, surprisingly simple, straightforward and well meaning sergeant (John Crawford) from the nearby US air force base and they make a date to go dancing but miss each other at the cafe rendezvous when his bus lets him down. Arriving three quarters of an hour late, the US airman finds the teacher gone and takes the cafe owner, young widow Mrs Lloyd (Patricia Burke), to the dance instead, culminating in her murder in the local park. Suspicion falls on the American, but Ann refuses to believe it. Mrs Lloyd’s young son Tommy (John Dare), one of Ann’s pupils, knows the murderer’s identity.

The Impersonator is a more than reasonable support mystery thriller, maybe outstanding of its kind, made with due care and attention, which produces the odd surprise and enough suspense, as well as sufficient strangeness. It’s involving and disturbing, without perhaps being entirely convincing, though the care it’s made with makes it quite persuasive, and the writing by Alfred Shaughnessy and Kenneth Cavander pushes hard to be original and fascinating.

Jane Griffiths is very appealing as the extremely posh teacher, John Crawford is a bit stiff but pleasant as the American airman, John Salew is splendidly creepy and sleazy as the lascivious killer Harry Walker, who plays Mother Goose in the panto at the town’s Grand theatre, and John Arnatt is particularly effective as the gruff, no-nonsense investigating copper. Patricia Burke is excellent as the cafe owner, so much so that it’s sad to see her go, while John Dare’s limited acting skills are understandable and acceptable. They’ve asked a little bit too much of a kid so young. But he’s still game for it.

This British classic B-film thriller entertains darkly while exploring the themes of misunderstanding, cultural differences and sexual identity against the background of the serious crimes of stalking and murder. It may have serious underlying themes to explore, but it is a bit dodgy that the killer is a female impersonator, though. Nevertheless, it is 1961, so we may find links to Peeping Tom and Psycho (both 1960), which certainly also have their dodgy elements. Hitchcock would certainly have approved of the the pantomime dame as the killer and loved the Theatre setting and filming. Michael Powell, too, probably.

Interesting that the film speaks up for the ‘stranger among us’ and for ‘otherness’, in terms of its pro-American stance and ‘foreigners living in our country’, yet turns a transvestite into a symbol of evil. Beware men impersonating females! At the end of the film, the little boy still loves Mother Goose, and is assured by the heroine that the one in the theatre isn’t the real Mother Goose, and that he can pick up her egg and treasure it. Wow! Talk about a nightmare.

Cast: John Crawford, Jane Griffiths, Patricia Burke, John Salew, John Dare, John Arnatt, Yvonne Ball as the Principal Boy in Mother Goose, Edmund Glover as US Colonel, Frank Thornton as the kindly but dim Police Sergeant on the desk at the police station.

The film was shot in three weeks at Pinewood Studios and on location in Uxbridge. The all-important pantomime sequences were filmed at the Metropolitan Theatre, Edgware Road, London, tragically demolished in 1963, helping to turn Edgware Road from an entertainment centre into an urban nightmare.

Release date: May 1961 (UK).

The Impersonator is directed by Alfred Shaughnessy, runs 64 minutes, is made by Eyeline Productions and Nippon Herald Films, is released by British Lion Film Corporation (UK), Bryanston Distributing (UK) and Continental Distributing (US), is written by Alfred Shaughnessy and Kenneth Cavander, is shot in black and white by John Coquillon, is produced by Anthony Perry, is scored by De Wolfe, and is designed by Jack Maxsted.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,766

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