Uneasy Terms *** (1948, Michael Rennie, Moira Lister, Faith Brook, Joy Shelton, Nigel Patrick, Paul Carpenter, Patricia Goddard, Barry Jones, Marie Ney, Sydney Tafler) – Classic Movie Review 13,647

The 1948 British crime thriller film Uneasy Terms stars Michael Rennie as London private eye Slim Callaghan, summoned to the country home of Colonel Stenhurst, who is murdered. Did one of the Colonel’s three daughters (Moira Lister, Faith Brook, Patricia Goddard) do it?

Uneasy Terms is the first film based on Peter Cheyney’s Slim Callaghan character.

Uneasy Terms (1948), with Michael Rennie as Slim Callaghan, is the first film based on Peter Cheyney’s character, followed by Meet Mr Callaghan (1954) with Derrick De Marney. Indeed it is the first Peter Cheyney film.

Director Vernon Sewell’s 1948 British crime thriller Uneasy Terms is based on Peter Cheyney’s ingenious 1946 bestseller, and stars Michael Rennie, Moira Lister, Faith Brook, Joy Shelton, Nigel Patrick, Paul Carpenter, Patricia Goddard, Barry Jones, Marie Ney, and Sydney Tafler.

Michael Rennie stars as hardboiled British private eye Slim Callaghan who investigates when Colonel Stenhurst, the step father of his client has received a letter, but is later found dead, murdered. Crucially, the Colonel has provided in his will that if any of his daughters marries she will forfeit her share of the estate. One daughter has secretly married and she is being blackmailed. Another daughters know of it but keeps quiet.

The Colonel’s eldest stepdaughter, Viola Allerdyse (Faith Brook) may be the killer, though there are two other stepdaughters, Corinne (Moira Lister) and Patricia (Patricia Goddard), who may be the real culprit. Inspector Gringall (Barry Jones) is on the case.

The film may be slightly uneasy, but a pleasing cast stokes up this British film adaptation of Peter Cheyney’s preposterously ingenious, twisty bestseller novel revolving around a will, a blackmail racket and a mysterious femme fatale.

Rennie makes an interesting private eye, cool, calculating and calmly determined, nothing ever bothering but he is always one step ahead of the game, and Faith Brook, Moira Lister and Patricia Goddard are good value in the rather extravagant roles of the sisters. Paul Carpenter and Joy Shelton are amusing as Slim’s employees, his Canadian sidekick Windy Nicholls and his adoring secretary Effie. Nigel Patrick and Sydney Tafler are smooth and deliberately charmless as the nightclub villains, with scene-stealing Barry Jones excellent as the quietly cynical old Inspector Gringall, who is in charge of the case but basically just lets Slim get on with it. Marie Ney impresses as the politely imperious mother, Honoria Wymering.

The nightclub art deco sets and the country mansion sets, Hans May’s weird music score, and Rennie’s big fight at the end are icing on a pretty tasty, flavourful cake.

Vernon Sewell recalled that Cheyney ‘had complete charge of casting, costumes and script, and had the choice of the world’s stars.” Cheyney insisted on Michael Rennie as Slim Callaghan, though Sewell thought he ‘wasn’t right for it.’ Not right, maybe, but quite good anyway.

If it is true that Cheyney had complete charge of casting, he certainly made a good job of it.

Cheyney is credited with the screenplay but Sewell said that Cheyney did not write the script. He recalled: ‘I’m sometimes left on the set with no script at all! Michael Rennie and I had to sit down and write the very next day’s work!’ There are some neat wisecracks in the script so maybe they are down to Sewell and Rennie.

Sewell said when the film opened Cheyney insisted that it would get good reviews ‘because the press dared not knock me’. ‘But the reviews were bad,’ said Sewell. ‘The film was pretty awful. And then he died! So we never made any more. That was the one Peter Cheyney film ever made. Poor old Peter.’ However, after his death, it was followed by Meet Mr Callaghan (1954) with Derrick De Marney as Slim Callaghan. And also, however, the film isn’t pretty awful at all.

British crime fiction writer Reginald Evelyn Peter Southouse-Cheyney (22 February 1896 – 26 June 1951)

The 1946 book Uneasy Terms is the seventh and last in Cheyney’s series of novels featuring his London-based private detective Slim Callaghan. Meet Mr Callaghan is based on the first one, The Urgent Hangman.

Joy Shelton married Sydney Tafler in 1944, and they acted in six films together. They share no scenes in Uneasy Terms.

It proved the penultimate film released by the British studio British National Films between 1935 and 1948, followed by No Room at the Inn. 

Cast: Michael Rennie, Moira Lister, Faith Brook, Joy Shelton, Nigel Patrick, Paul Carpenter, Patricia Goddard, Barry Jones, Marie Ney, Sydney Tafler, J H Roberts, Joan Carroll, Harry Brooks, Terrence De Marney, Gordon Plunkett, Tony Quinn, Roy Russell, Chick Rolfe, Mark Stone, George Stree, Delia Digby, William Forbes, Kathleen Heath, Julian Henry, Mary Horn, Clifford Buckton, Alec Bernard, Doreen English, and William Bridger.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,647

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