The Lamp in Assassin Mews *** (1962, Francis Matthews, Lisa Daniely, Ian Fleming, Amy Dalby) – Classic Movie Review 13,862

The 1962 British dark crime comedy B-movie The Lamp in Assassin Mews is a little delight, starring Francis Matthews and Lisa Daniely, along with Ian Fleming and Amy Dalby as elderly serial killers of vacuum salesman

Director Godfrey Grayson’s 1962 British dark crime comedy B-movie The Lamp in Assassin Mews is a little delight, with two favourite actors Francis Matthews and Ian Fleming, along with Lisa Daniely and Amy Dalby. It is lovely little film, a very considerable pleasure, featuring elderly serial killers of vacuum salesmen, a tremendously amusing idea.

It is a Danziger production, and easily one of their better, more notable movies. It starts with the old couple pushing a pram full of chopped-up body parts of a vacuum salesman, cheerily travelling to the town dump, and majorly concerned that their pram has scratched their street’s gas light on the way. It is impossible not to like it.

The script is by Mark Grantham (billed as M M McCormick. He doesn’t know quite where to take it, and it ends lamely, conveniently forgetting the elderly serial killers and their fate, sidelining them at the end, and concentrating on the far less interesting romantic relationship of the hero and heroine. Nevertheless, The Lamp in Assassin Mews is still really rather good and always entertaining as a minor British Arsenic and Old Lace.

Ian Fleming and Amy Dalby are tremendous as the charming elderly serial killers, for whom the world all went wrong after the Boer War, standing firmly in the way of ‘modernisation’ and ‘progress’, clinging to the pleasures of having no electricity and enjoying the town’s remaining gaslight in their street. It’s one old man’s entire to look after it. Modernising head of the town council Francis Matthews wants to replace the lamp with and electric one, and sack the lamplighter. Lovely local school teacher Lisa Daniely is entirely against town modernisation and is organising events and protests.

Francis Matthews joins one of her fund-raising parties undercover in dark glasses with a false name, strictly on a get-to-know your enemy basis. They’re on the opposite sides of the fence, but of course like the look of each other. Matthews wants Daniely to join him in a dance.

The deputy council leader has most of the town in his pocket through business connections, and his daughter fancies Francis Matthews for herself, and tries to put a spoke in the wheel of his budding romance with Lisa Daniely. Around this point a third travelling vacuum salesman turns up at the Ian Fleming and Amy Dalby house. He is very annoying, barging in and never stopping his aggressive sales pitch. Certainly Ian Fleming and Amy Dalby find him very annoying, and it looks unlikely that he’ll be selling more vacuum cleaners any time soon.

Finally Ian Fleming and Amy Dalby have to turn their murderous intentions on Francis Matthews as he is in the way of their plans, with the casting vote at the crucial council meeting, and got to be stopped by foul means rather than fair. Amy Dalby bakes a poisoned fruit cake; Ian Fleming laces the dandelion wine with poison, then turns his attentions to death by vacuum cleaner!

It is all very entertaining and amusing, and with a strong theme standing against the new world sweeping in with the Swinging Sixties. It turns out that the two young people are both against modernisation, so modernisation equals bad for the film. Francis Matthews has only posed as modernising council leader to keep in with the all-important deputy council leader, and basically have an easy life, agree with everyone. He’s very polite and affable, but an amoral cynic. Interesting character. Lisa Daniely is nice, honourable, but no pushover. The film has a cosy, conservative agenda completely undercut by the serial killer theme.

Ian Fleming is a very good actor (his Dr Watson in the 1930s series of Sherlock Holmes films opposite Arthur Wontner’s Holmes is a career highspot), rarely given enough to do, but when he is, like here, he eats it up. He has great chemistry with Amy Dalby, an appealing actress who is withing a whisper of being as brilliant as Katie Johnson in The Ladykillers. Francis Matthews does his young smoothie act to perfection, quite stylish and expert, a young version of his later old smoothie act. Lisa Daniely, slightly unusually cast. is rather good, pitching it right. The actor’s one scene as the third travelling vacuum salesman is a little showstopper.

It runs only 65 minutes, leaving us hungry for more.

Cast: Francis Matthews as Jack Norton, Lisa Daniely as Mary Clarke, Ian Fleming as Albert Potts, Amy Dalby as Victoria Potts, Ann Sears as Ruth, Anne Lawson  as Ella, Derek Tansley as Jarvis, John Lewis as Harpingdon, Ann Lancaster as Mrs Dowling, Colin Tapley as Inspector, Douglas Ives as Gault, Dorothea Phillips as Mrs Burke.

The over-cheery score by is an irritant and often inappropriate, seeming intended for a farce rather than black comedy.

Director Godfrey Grayson made five films in 1962: The Durant Affair (1962), She Always Gets Their Man (1962), The Lamp in Assassin Mews (1962), The Battleaxe (1962), and Design for Loving (1962).

© Derek Winnert 2026 – Classic Movie Review 13,861

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