Derek Winnert

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This article was written on 25 Jun 2022, and is filled under Reviews.

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Act of Murder **** (1964, John Carson, Anthony Bate, Justine Lord) – Classic Movie Review 12,200

The 1964 British black and white crime thriller Act of Murder is a gripping and clever support feature in the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series about a couple (Anthony Bate, Justine Lord), who arrange a holiday where you exchange homes with strangers.

Director Alan Bridges’s superior noirish 1964 British black and white crime thriller film Act of Murder is a particularly gripping and clever little support feature in the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series, with a screenplay by Lewis Davidson about a couple, Ralph Longman and Anne Longman (Anthony Bate, Justine Lord), who arrange one of those holidays where you exchange homes with strangers.

In real life you give up your lovely house for something uncomfortable; in films of course, the result is mayhem, and possibly murder.

Apparently happily married country couple Ralph Longman and Anne Longman (Anthony Bate, Justine Lord) plan a holiday in London to take in a bunch of stage plays, as the wife is an ex-actress. So they have arranged to swap homes with an older couple (Duncan Lewis as Will Peterson, Dandy Nichols as Maud Peterson), who want to stay in the countryside for a couple of weeks. 

Meanwhile an actor named Tim Ford (John Carson) is staying with the Longmans and is trying everything he knows to get his ex-actress old flame Anne Longman (Lord) back into his bed while trying to persuade her to return to the stage.

[Spoiler alert] The Petersons turn out to be part of dodgy dealer John Quick (Richard Burrell)’s antique thieving scam, and immediately get to work packing up the Longmans’ treasured items to make off with them. But they are interrupted by Tim Ford (John Carson), who has returned to pick up his suitcase. The Longmans arrive in London to find the address they have been given does not exist, report it to the police, who tell them they are being robbed, but return home to find everything intact. However, Anne’s beloved dog, budgie and plants are soon found poisoned. 

It reads like a TV cast of the day, but they know exactly what they are doing with the intriguing, totally unique, rather baffling material, and so does director Alan Bridges, who brings some considerable flair and style to the film, along with enough tension (some criminal, some sexual) and air of mystery. John Carson, Anthony Bate, Justine Lord are all really good, quite credible and compelling.

Lord makes it easy to see why the two men could be so besotted with her. Her character is a capricious tease, and Lord oozes provocative unattainable desirability in the entirely actressy way of her character, vamping femme fatally. John Carson and Anthony Bate show what real good actors they are, playing desperate men at the end of their tether, all because of a woman, who doesn’t really love either of them: she’s a narcissist actress.

Ultimately, it is the film’s weirdness that makes it so special. It hasn’t a familiar or boring bone in its body. Obviously, none of this could happen in real life (or could it?), but that’s what makes it so entertaining. The plot is madness. Quite bonkers. It hardly even makes sense. When the film finishes, it’s ‘what the heck just happened?’ You even want to see it again immediately for a double check second opinion. There’s a nice doomy atmosphere, of an English noir world where everything is somehow wrong and anything could happen, but it wouldn’t be good.

It is one of the best of the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series, the British second-feature film series produced at Merton Park Studios for Anglo-Amalgamated. The 48 films in the series were released between 1960 and 1965.

It is shot mainly in the studio at Merton Park Studios, Merton, London, England, but there is considerable welcome and effective location shooting. It escapes any feeling of being low budget or studio set bound.

The cast are Anthony Bate as Ralph Longman, John Carson as Tim Ford, Justine Lord as Anne Longman, Duncan Lewis as Will Peterson, Dandy Nichols as Maud Peterson, Richard Burrell as John Quick, Sheena Marshe as Pauline, Norman Scace as Watson, Robin Wentworth as constable, John Moore as publican, Michael Brennan as police sergeant, Kenneth Laud, Edward Roscoe, Michael Robbins as van driver, Marianne Stone as Bobbie, Jimmy Cains as Vicar, and Jack Carter as police officer.

Act of Murder is directed by Alan Bridges, runs 62 minutes, is made by Merton Park Studios, is released by Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors (UK) and Embassy Pictures (US), is written by Lewis Davidson, is shot in black and white by James Wilson, is produced by Jack Greenwood, and is scored by Bernard Ebbinghouse.

It is Alan Bridges’s first film as director.

It was released in the UK as a support feature to Carry on Cleo in 1964.

The Edgar Wallace Mysteries 

There were 48 films in the British second-feature film series The Edgar Wallace Mysteries, produced at Merton Park Studios for Anglo-Amalgamated and released in cinemas between 1960 and 1965.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,200

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