Park Plaza 605 [Norman Conquest] ** (1953, Tom Conway, Eva Bartok, Joy Shelton, Robert Adair, Sidney James, Richard Wattis, Carl Jaffe, Anton Diffring) – Classic Movie Review 13,539

The 1953 British second feature crime film thriller Park Plaza 605 [Norman Conquest] stars Tom Conway as a private investigator mixed up in a murder investigation where he’s the prime suspect, and Eva Bartok as the mysterious foreign blonde woman he meets.

Director Bernard Knowles’s 1953 British second feature crime thriller film Park Plaza 605 [Norman Conquest] stars Tom Conway, Eva Bartok, Joy Shelton, Robert Adair, Sidney James, Richard Wattis, Carl Jaffe, Frederick Schiller and Anton Diffring.

It is written by the director Bernard Knowles and the film’s producers Albert Fennell and Bertram Ostrer, and Clifford Witting (treatment), based on the 1950 novel Dare-Devil Conquest by Edwy Searles Brookes (writing under the pen-name of Berkeley Gray).

Eva Bartok stars as a mysterious foreign blonde gem smuggler called Nadina Rodin, who frames a private detective bizarrely called Norman Conquest (Tom Conway) for murder, but she is then set up by the Nazi-sympathising real killer, Baron von Henschel (Robert Adair), in this moderate filler thriller.

Writing, acting and direction are by and large equally uninspired, with the screenplay as contrived and as artificial as the hero’s name of Norman Conquest, which was used as the American title. The original title hotel is the location of Bartok’s first meeting with Conway in room 605 of the Park Plaza Hotel, after he has stumbled across a cryptic message sent by carrier pigeon. Carrier pigeons, eh? Those were the days!

Nevertheless there are many familiar welcome faces in the cast, especially including Sid James unusually cast as the police Superintendent Bill Williams, but also Richard Wattis, Anton Diffring, Edwin Richfield, Michael Balfour, Terence Alexander and Richard Marner. And the plot is complicated enough to maintain interest for 75 minutes.

Tom Conway and Eva Bartok give very ripe, unconvincing performances but Sidney James is cheery and cheering as the cockney copper. The production and photography can’t escape the low budget restrictions of the film-making.

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

It is filmed in black and white, so it a shock to find it in lurid colour on the Internet.

It stars Tom Conway as Norman Conquest, Eva Bartok as Nadina Rodin, Joy Shelton as Pixie Everard, Robert Adair as Baron von Henschel, Sidney James as police Superintendent Bill Williams, Richard Wattis as Theodore Feather, Carl Jaffe as Boris Roff, Frederick Schiller as Ivan Burgin, and Anton Diffring as Gregor.

Also in the cast are Ian Fleming as Colonel Santling, Edwin Richfield as Mr Reynolds, Michael Balfour as Ted Birston, Martin Boddey as Stumpy, Terence Alexander as hotel manager, Richard Marner as Barkov, Victor Platt as taxi driver, Leon Davey as Mandeville Livingstone, Tony Hilton as lift attendant, Alan Rolfe as police inspector, Derek Prentice as hall porter, Frank Sieman as Captain Kramer, Brian Moorehead as first mate. Billie Hill as Mrs Pottle, and Anthony Woodruff as clerk.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,539

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