The Desperate Man ** (1959, Conrad Phillips, Jill Ireland, William Hartnell, Charles Gray, Peter Swanwick) – Classic Movie Review 13,808

The modest but robust and agreeable 1959 British black and white second feature crime suspense film The Desperate Man stars the likeable Conrad Phillips, Jill Ireland, William Hartnell, and Charles Gray.

Director Peter Maxwell’s modest but robust, agreeable and quite entertaining 1959 British black and white second feature crime suspense film The Desperate Man stars the likeable Conrad Phillips, Jill Ireland and William Hartnell, with Charles Gray. The screenplay is written by James Eastwood, adapting the 1958 novel Beginner’s Luck by English journalist and crime novelist Paul Winterton, who used the pseudonyms Paul Somers and Andrew Garve.

Conrad Phillips and Jill Ireland star as crime reporters Curtis and Carol, who are investigating a murder in the tower of an ancient castle, when they stumble across a jewel thief calling himself Smith (William Hartnell) looking for jewels that he had hidden four years earlier, after robbing a local house and ending up in jail. Smith holds Carol hostage and forces Curtis to assist him, while Smith recovers sufficiently from his leg injury sustained in a fight with Curtis to make his getaway a couple of days later.

The fictional Marley Castle in the movie is Bodiam Castle, Bodiam, East Sussex, England. Much is, rightly, made of the exciting location, the fourth star of the movie, arguably its main attraction. Battling some witless, actor-challenging lines, well-cast Conrad Phillips and William Hartnell bring considerable conviction to their roles to try to beef up this unlikely, difficult to believe story. Phillips is a cool, calculating hero and Hartnell a nasty, calculating villain, both men playing to their strengths, giving vigorous performances. But Jill Ireland is floundering, miscast and adrift. She is no crime reporter, just an attractive movie starlet, rather unusual looking.

The silky and smug Charles Gray adds a huge attraction as lascivious rival crime reporter Lawson, but he is just a side character and disappears way too early on. Patricia Burke has a nice little cameo as Miss Prew. She went on to play in two Edgar Wallace Mysteries: Marriage of Convenience (1960) and Strangler’s Web (1960) also produced at Merton Park Studios.

It’s a tiny cast, basically just a three-hander, with most of the drama playing out on an adequate studio re-creation of the castle battlements.

It is made at Merton Park Studios, and released in December 1959 by Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors (UK).

It runs only 57 minutes, and it could have been developed into a bigger-sized, grander feature, with a bit more invention and imagination, and money of course.

Originally a British B-movie from 1959, it appeared in the US as an episode of Kraft Mystery Theater in 1961.

The cast are Conrad Phillips as Curtis, Jill Ireland as Carol Bourne, William Hartnell as Smith, Charles Gray as Lawson, Peter Swanwick as Hoad, Arthur Gomez as Landlord, John Warwick as Inspector Cobley, Patricia Burke as Miss Prew, and Ernest Butcher as grocer.

William Hartnell (8 January 1908 – 23 April 1975) is immortalised as the real Doctor Who (from 1963 to 1966).

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,808

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