The Third Alibi *** (1961, Laurence Payne, Patricia Dainton, Jane Griffiths, Edward Underdown, John Arnatt, Lucy Griffiths) – Classic Movie Review 13,799

Laurence Payne stars as a married composer who finds that his affair with his wife Patricia Dainton’s half-sister Jane Griffiths is a fatal attraction, in the 1961 British thriller B-film The Third Alibi.

Director Montgomery Tully’s thoroughly likeable and enjoyable 1961 British thriller B-film The Third Alibi stars Laurence Payne, Patricia Dainton, Jane Griffiths, Edward Underdown, and John Arnatt.

The Third Alibi is a short, small-scale British second feature thriller based on Pip and Jane Baker’s play Moment of Blindness with Laurence Payne as the composer who plans to murder his wife (Patricia Dainton) with the help of his pregnant mistress (Jane Griffiths) who also happens to be his wife’s sister.

A young looking Cleo Laine (billed as a guest star) has a cameo as the singer of a musical number in the theatre. Her piano accompanist is an uncredited, non-speaking but clearly visible Dudley Moore in his first film role.

The Third Alibi is absolutely preposterous but hugely entertaining and satisfying, with three first-rate, diamond-hard star performances of exceptionally unpleasant characters, all murderous, and an excellent support turn from John Arnatt as the investigating policeman, dim but dogged. Lucy Griffiths is a hoot as the gossipy telephone exchange lady Miss Potter. There’s no slacking anywhere in the acting, with everyone ideally cast, or in Montgomery Tully’s attentive handling, moving about enough to break away from the stage origins (a theatre visit, a cinema visit). It uses Payne’s chilly, tormented personality ruthlessly, and relies confidently on the contrasting allure of the leading ladies. It all goes very smoothly and very well, a credit to everybody, notably the undervalued Montgomery Tully.

You could say it is a little bit stagy and unconvincing, depending too much on chance and coincidence, but it slips past tremendously easily, enjoyably and satisfyingly. Actually, it’s really quite a little treat, an exciting mystery movie. It’s like Dial M for Murder. It couldn’t actually happen, and you know it couldn’t as you are watching it, yet you believe, well, almost every word of it. Incidentally, it shares some ideas with Dial M, the murderous husband and the alibi depending on a pre-arranged, time specific phone call, a benign detective, and a wife forced into a killing.

Everybody gets their just deserts in the final surprise payoff. Neat.

Release date: September 1961 (UK).

The Regal Cinema in Walton-on-Thames

Peggy Hill (played by Jane Griffiths) goes to the local picture house to set up her alibi. The cinema she visits is identified in the film’s location notes as the Regal Cinema on New Zealand Road, in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. Built for exhibitor Lou Morris, it opened on 26 March 1938, was sold to Arthur Cohen’s Mayfair Circuit in 1941, bought by Associated British Cinemas in 1963 and re‑branded ABC, but closed on 11 December 1971and later demolished. Shops now occupy the site. It shows up in many 1950s‑60s British B‑movies shot at nearby Walton Studios, the primary studio location for most of this film.

The Third Alibi is directed by Montgomery Tully, runs 68 minutes, is made by Eternal Films, is released by Grand National  Pictures (UK), is written by Maurice J Wilson and Montgomery Tully, is shot in black and white by Walter J Harvey [James Harvey], is produced by Maurice J Wilson, is scored by Don Banks, and is designed by William Hutchinson.

Ernest Albert Baker (3 January 1929 – 14 April 2020) and Iris E E Baker (30 December 1924 – 29 August 2014) were known professionally as Pip and Jane Baker. They worked on several films in the 1960s, including Night of the Big Heat (1967) and Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969), and contributed to four Doctor Who serials in the 1980s. 

Scotland-born Patricia Dainton (born Margaret Bryden Pate; 12 April 1930 – 31 May 2023) appeared in around 20 films between 1947 and her last in 1961, Ticket to Paradise.

The films of Jane Griffiths (16 October 1929 – 11 June 1975): Double Confession (1950), The Gambler and the Lady (1952), The Million Pound Note (1954), The Green Scarf (1954), Shadow of a Man (1956), The Traitor [The Accursed] (1957), Three Sundays to Live (1957), Tread Softly Stranger (1958), The Impersonator (1961), The Third Alibi (1961), The Durant Affair (1962), Dead Man’s Evidence (1962), The Double (1963).

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,799

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