Meet Sexton Blake! ** (1945, David Farrar, John Varley, Manning Whiley, Dennis Arundell) – Classic Movie Review 11,214

Writer-director John Harlow’s 1943 over-the-top Sexton Blake black and white British wartime crime mystery thriller Meet Sexton Blake! stars reliable actor David Farrar, who is well cast as the famous detective called in by the War Office on the important case of some significant documents stolen from an air-raid victim’s corpse.

Hesitant handling, the cheap-looking production and its uncertain tone count against it but the old-style mystery is quite involving and the performances fairly appealing.

It is Farrar’s first outing as Blake, following a bit part in 1938’s Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror. John Varley plays his trusty side-kick Tinker.

Harlow’s screenplay is based on the characters created by Henry Blyth (using the pseudonym Hal Meredeth), and The Mystery of the Free Frenchmen by Anthony Parsons.

Also in the cast are Magda Kun, Gordon McLeod, Manning Whiley, Kathleen Harrison, Dennis Arundell, Cyril Smith, Ferdy Mayne, Betty Huntley-Wright, Jean Simmons, Roddy Hughes and Charles Farrell.

It is followed by The Echo Murders (1945), also with David Farrar in his only other film as Sexton Blake, and also directed by John Harlow.

Meet Sexton Blake is directed by John Harlow, runs 80 minutes, is made by Strand Film Company and British National Films, is released by Anglo-American Film Corporation (1945) (UK), is written by John Harlow, is shot in black and white by Geoffrey Faithfull, produced by Louis H Jackson, and scored by Percival Mackey.

The first Sexton Blake story was The Missing Millionaire, written by Harry Blyth (as Hal Meredeth) and published in the story paper The Halfpenny Marvel number 6 on 20 December 1893.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,214

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