Cover Girl Killer *** (1959, Harry H Corbett, Felicity Young, Spencer Teakle) – Classic Movie Review 11,748

Writer-director Terry Bishop’s creepy 1960 black and white thriller Cover Girl Killer stars Harry H Corbett, Felicity Young and Spencer Teakle, along with Victor Brooks, Tony Doonan and Charles Lloyd Pack. Cover girls are being strangled to death in London in the sequence and same outfit as they appear on the front cover of Wow magazine.

A pre-Steptoe and Son Corbett leads this suspenseful, effective and brief British crime drama as a serial killer madman on the loose, killing models stripping for pin-up pictures. Fortunately the publisher (Teakle) of a glamour publication and one of his models, June Rawson (Young), are at hand to assist police inspector Brunner (Brooks) and his sergeant (Doonan) in catching the killer when Young agrees to be the bait to snare Corbett.

A cheap-looking but quite sprightly, decently acted and well done little item is above average for this modest kind of supporting feature.

it is shot at Walton Studios, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood use a line of dialogue from the film in their 1984 number one single Two Tribes: ‘Sex and horror are the new gods’.

The cast are Harry H Corbett as Mr Spectato/ Mr Fairchild, Felicity Young as June Rawson, Spencer Teakle as John Mason, Victor Brooks as Inspector Brunner, Bernadette Milnes as Gloria Starke, Christina Gregg as Joy Adams, Tony Doonan as Sergeant, John Barrard as Lennie Ross, Charles Lloyd Pack as Captain Adams, Alan Edwards as Hodgkins, Dermot Kelly as Pop, Denis Holmes as Actor, Julie Shearing as Rosie, Tony Thawnton as Doctor, Paddy Joyce as Stagehand, Claude Jones as Constable Jones, and John Baker as Plainclothes Man.

Cover Girl Killer is directed by Terry Bishop, runs 61 minutes, is made by Parroch Films and Jack Parsons Productions, is released by Eros Films (1959) (UK), Fanfare Films (1960) (US) and Butcher’s Film Distributors (1959) (worldwide), is written by Terry Bishop, is shot by Gerald Gibbs, is produced by Jack Parsons and scored by William Davies, with Art Direction by Andrew Campbell and Peter Proud.

It is released on Region 2 DVD by Renown Pictures Corporation (2010) (UK) (DVD).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,748

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com