Wings of Danger (1952)

Aka Dead On Course. You can stop me flying tonight. I can stop you flying permanently. Spencer Airlines in England flies between London and the Channel Islands. American pilot Richard ‘Van’ Van Ness (Zachary Scott) tries to stop his friend and colleague Nick Talbot (Robert Beatty) from taking off in a storm. Nick threatens to tell their boss, Boyd Spencer (Arthur Lane) that Van suffers from blackouts. Next morning, Van’s fears come true when debris from Nick’s aircraft wash ashore. Van tells Spencer who does not seem bothered about Nick dying. Van asks Spencer’s girl friend Alexia LaRoche (Kay Kendall) to exchange pounds for dollars. The next night, he visits girl friend, Nick’s sister Avril (Naomi Chance) who is being blackmailed by a man named Snell (Harold Lang) to keep her father from discovering Nick’s post-war black market business dealings.Van forces Snell to confess and learns that a set of tools are to be delivered to Cherbourg for Spencer. Van finds the box of tools in the storage room – when another man runs from the room and escapes on a motorcycle. Customs officer, Inspector Maxwell (Colin Tapley) discovers the tools are made of solid gold. Later, the bellboy is shot driving Van’s car to the front door, and Van has Snell arrested. Alexia reveals that Spencer has in his office, a coded notebook with financial information. Van breaks into Spencer’s darkened office and finds the notebook but hears Spencer collapse and sees the man from the storage building rush out to his motorcycle. Van follows at high speed but suffers a blackout and crashes his car. Then the mysterious man rescues him and takes him the cottage that Nick and his girl friend Jeanette (Diane Cilento) share. Nick admits he faked his own death. It was because he was wanted by the French police – and Spencer was fully aware of his situation. Nick also knows Spencer has been making counterfeit dollars from old Nazi forging plates. Van and Nick confront Spencer but Nick is shot … You can’t let a guy die in peace? Written by John Gilling,adapting the 1951 novel Dead On Course by Elleston Trevor & Packham Webb, this crime drama benefits from the transatlantic casting and the fabulous women, presumably a condition of this joint Hammer Films-Lippert Pictures co-production as part of their eight-film deal. Beatty is a good foil for Scott in a friendship that is shifty at the beginning, the one virtually blackmailing the other, appropriately enough for a smuggling plot in the post-war era of austerity, restrictions and rationing. Giving Scott a potentially fatal flaw adds to the tension in which he feels trapped by the pursuit of his friend. When Beatty reappears he’s humanised and funny with a great girlfriend to make up for his priors: Cilento is making her debut here and she’s perfectly lovely. For once the vivacious Kendall seems rather conventional – perhaps it’s because of the screenplay and that she really comes alive in colour films. Of the three leading women, Chance probably has the most to play in the narrative and does it well. Trevor was the pseudonym of writer Trevor Dudley Smith and he had flown in the RAF during WW2. His early novels concern aviation but he’s perhaps best known for his Quiller series, with The Quiller Memorandum receiving A treatment 13 years after this and The Flight of the Phoenix was another big budgeted-production that would cement his reputation. This isn’t on that level (there’s no Pinter adaptation) but it’s a nifty story with some nice moments and any film that can credit Three Blondes has a sense of humour. There’s a typically thrilling score from Malcolm Arnold to go with the suspense and chase motifs. Shot on location at Rye, East Sussex and at Riverside studios in Hammersmith. Directed by Terence Fisher. The trouble with you and me is we don’t trust each other

The Black Phone (2022)

You spend so many years invisible then everyone in the State knows your name. Denver, 1978. Serial child kidnapper and murderer  nicknamed The Grabber prowls the streets. Siblings Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen Blake (Madeleine McGraw) live in the area with their abusive, alcoholic father Terrence (Jeremy Davies) At school, Finney is regularly bullied and harassed. He has a friendship with a classmate Robin (Miguel Cazaarez) who fends off the bullies. A boy that Finney knew, Bruce (Tristan Pravong) is abducted by the Grabber. Gwen, who has psychic dreams much like her late mother, dreams of Bruce’s kidnapping. Detectives Wright (E. Roger Mitchell) and Miller (Troy Rudeseal) interview Gwen at school, believing she has inside knowledge. She refuses to help but is still punished by Terrence for speaking with the detectives, enduring a terrible beating. Shortly after, the Grabber abducts Robin. Days later, the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) kidnaps Finney on the street, pulling him into a black van. He sends up a cloud of black balloons just like Gwen dreams and characterises each abduction. Finney wakes up in a soundproofed basement. On the wall is an old-style and disconnected black telephone. Later, Finney hears the phone ring and answers it. Bruce’s ghost tells Finney about a floor tile he can remove to dig a tunnel to escape. The police search for Finney is unsuccessful. The Grabber brings Finney food and leaves the door unlocked. Finney is tempted to sneak out. Billy (Jacob Moran) another boy on the phone, calls and explains this is a game that the Grabber plays. He is waiting to punish Finney if he leaves the basement. Billy instructs him to use a cord to get out via the basement window. His attempts break the bars on the window grate, preventing him from climbing back up. Gwen dreams of Billy being abducted and finally confides in her father.Wright and Miller speak to an eccentric man called Max (James Ransone) who is staying in the area with his brother: Finney is in the clueless Max’s basement and the Grabber is his brother … He was an idiot. But he was my idiot. It has the dark throb of suburban fug and feels like it’s from the world of Stephen King. That’s an apt reference because King’s son Joe Hill wrote the short story that inspired this. A vaguely abused child, a horrible home, a weirdo in the neighbourhood. That cuts to the bone of a lot of those photographs of missing kids on milk cartons and while this has a supernatural element it feels a lot nastier than King’s work even with those balloons flying up in the title sequence, a nostalgic montage of iconic Seventies objects and headlines that signify the lack of control in children’s lives. The common thread linking life in the cellar with life in the home and school is codified in bullying and beatings. Entrapment in childhood is emphasised in the bass resonating on the soundtrack. The only true colours are blood and rust in this desaturated world. At the centre is a wonderful performance by Thames, practically Garboesque in its incarnation, and McGraw as his sister is a revelation. Hawke has reunited with the Sinister team and his role – much of it behind that mask concealing the lower half of his face – uses vocal mannerisms including a childish high pitch to instill terror. This is a film filled with dread, beautifully crafted. A nightmare of childhood. Written by director Scott Derrickson and producer C. Robert Cargill from that home of contemporary horror Blumhouse. Nighty night, naughty boy

World Piano Day 29th March 2023!

Who doesn’t love to tinkle the ivories (and ebonies!) now and again? To celebrate World Piano Day, we’ve assembled clips from a variety of films where the keyboard has a significant role. Roll it, Maestra!

Paul O’Grady 14th June 1955 – 28th March 2023

Paul O’Grady has died suddenly at the age of 67. He played prostitute Roxanne in The Bill and his redoubtable and hilarious Lily Savage drag persona entered our living rooms via The Big Breakfast bed before going on to host Blankety Blank and then his great friend Cilla Black’s dating game, Blind Date. His evening chat shows on Channel 4 had a special atmosphere and his Sunday evening BBC Radio 2 shows were a source of great comfort, his banter with producer Malcolm Prince being an ever-heartening exchange to eavesdrop on particularly in those dark pandemic lockdowns. A tireless advocate of gay rights and champion of the underdog – quite literally – his recent TV shows on behalf of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home earned him a new generation of fans. Performing just four days ago in a touring production of Annie, this has come as a shock. Comedian, drag queen, animal lover, TV legend, RIP the wonderful, irreplaceable, beloved Paul O’Grady.

Murder by Proxy (1955)

Aka Blackout. As far as I’m concerned last night was a complete blackout. Drunk and down-and-out US Army veteran Casey Morrow (Dane Clark) is living in London. Approached by a young and stunningly beautiful heiress Phyllis Brunner (Belinda Lee) in a bar, she offers him a lot of money if he will marry her. He accepts but wakes up the next morning in some other woman’s Chelsea studio flat with blood on his coat. She’s an artist called Maggie Summerfield (Eleanor Summerfield) and he knows she has something to do with Phyllis because her portrait hangs on Maggie’s wall. He finds Phyllis on the front pages of the newspapers where he learns about the murder of her father. And he’s the prime suspect. Now he has to unravel the mystery to clear his name, which leads him into a twisted labyrinth of encounters with various suspicious characters including Phyllis’s fiance Lance Gordon (Andrew Osborn), Phyllis’ mother Alicia (Betty Ann Davies) and her lawyer Travis (Harold Lang) who seem to make his situation worse the more he learns but prompts a reunion with his mother (Nora Gordon) who’s been in London for years which leads him back into the hands of the police in the form of Inspector Johnson (Michael Golden) … After the war I stayed in Europe for years searching for something, I don’t know what. Adapted by Richard H. Landau from Helen Nielsen’s second novel which was published in 1952, this film noir crime drama with a British twist plugs into all the style’s tropes with the added benefit of Lee, that gorgeous woman whose life was ultimately tragic and whose performance here practically sizzles. Most of Nielsen’s novels were set around where she lived in Laguna Beach and Oceanside, CA, and she is perhaps remembered in media terms for her scriptwriting on key TV series of the era – Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Perry Mason, although the Black Lizard imprint republished a lot of her books in the past decade or so. This has a twisty plot and after a while, when it seems Clark is the patsy after all, it becomes perversely more enjoyable as the story winds itself into an impossible reveal. There’s impersonation, a highly recognisable scent, and something going on with the late Mr Brunner’s charities that leads to a dodgy office occupied by a man called Vanno. Produced by Michael Carreras at Hammer’s studios in Bray as part of an eight-film deal with America’s Lippert Pictures, this boasts some terrific scene-setting with its shots of Chelsea by day and night, a raft of familiar faces and a performance by a very young and uncredited Cleo Laine opening proceedings with a song as Clark gets sloshed. Lee was just 18 years old when this was made and she’s so accomplished as an apparent femme fatale bewitching Clark’s ordinary Joe it’s hard to reconcile with her youth. The film’s script supervisor Renee Glynne recalled her experiences for the Talking Pictures TV channel where we saw this and recalled her experiences with charismatic Lee, who she said was still very inexperienced at that time and I had to watch her quite carefully. She’d cross her legs the wrong way or turn her head at the wrong moment or come out with the wrong line, so I’d have to correct her and try to help her out. Dane obviously fancied her and got very cross with my professional interference’. He got quite nasty and was actually pushing me away from her.” Glynne [says she] had to take medication “in order to survive the rest of the film. After that I had to give all my instructions to him through the director, Terry Fisher…after some shots he’d have to put his head under cold water because he was so enraged that I was even there. Eventually he realised how silly it all was and went down on his knees, tears streaming down his face, begging me to forgive him, But I still asked Tony Hinds to take me off the next film he was in. Lee was well known throughout the Fifties, photographed regularly by her older husband Cornel Lucas in order to get publicity but really became tabloid fodder for her romantic relationships when she moved to Italy, particularly for her adulterous relationship with Prince Filippo Orsini in the summer of 1958, the year of La dolce vita. She died tragically young at 25 in a car crash in San Bernardino, California with her new boyfriend Gualtiero Jacopetti and two of his colleagues when they were driving at high speed from a film shoot for Women of the World in Las Vegas. She was thrown from the vehicle when it flipped over; the others survived. It was the 12th March 1961, a year to the day that her peplum spectacle Messalina was released. Jacopetti went on to become a famous shockumentary maker a couple of years later with the release of Mondo Cane, the first of the genre that inspired this very blog. This was released in the UK sixty-eight years ago today, 28th March 1955. Watch out for Alfie Bass as Ernie the bartender. Directed by Hammer stalwart Terence Fisher. It’s a big jump from garbage cans to mink

He Walked By Night (1948)

The work of a police, like that of woman, is never done. The city of Los Angeles. LAPD Officer Robert Rawlins (John McGuire) is a patrolman on his way home from work. He stops a man (Richard Basehart) whom he suspects of being a burglar and is shot and mortally wounded. The minor clues lead nowhere. Two police detectives, Sergeant Marty Brennan (Scott Brennan) and Sergeant Chuck Jones (James Cardwell) are assigned to catch the killer Roy Morgan a brilliant mystery man with no known criminal past. Morgan is hiding in a Hollywood bungalow and listening to police calls on his custom radio in an attempt to avoid capture. His only relationship is with his small dog. Roy consigns stolen electronic equipment to Paul Reeves (Whit Bissell) and is nearly caught when he tries to collect on his property. Reeves tells police that the suspect is a mystery man named Roy Martin. The case crosses the paths of Brennan and Jones, who stake out Reeves’s office to arrest and question Roy. However, Roy suspects a trap and in a brief shootout, he shoots and paralyses Jones. Jones wounds Roy, who performs surgery on himself to remove the bullet and to avoid the hospital, where his wound would be reported to the police. With his knowledge of police procedures, Roy changes his modus operandi and becomes an armed robber. During one robbery, he fires his semiautomatic pistol and the police recover the ejected casing.sics s Forensics specialist Lee Whitey (Jack Webb) matches the ejector marks on the casing to those recovered in the killing of Rawlins and the wounding of Jones, connecting all three shootings to one suspect. Captain Breen (Roy Roberts) uses the break in the case to gather all of the witnesses to the robberies. They assist Lee in building a composite sketch of the killer. Reeves then identifies Roy from the composite – but Roy hides in Reeves’s car and tries to intimidate him into revealing details of the police investigation. He just about escapes a stakeout of Reeves’s house. Because the police are unaware that Roy has inside knowledge of their work, the case goes nowhere – so Breen ends up removing Brennan from the case. Jones convinces his partner to stop viewing the case personally. Brennan uses the composite photograph, which results in information that Roy, whose real name is Roy Morgan, worked for a local police department as a civilian radio technician before he was drafted into the army … They showed that picture to the inmates of jails and prisons, to men with a wide acquaintance among the cat burglars and the violence boys. Informers and con men and sharpshooters were quizzed. Those on the fringe of crime and those deep in the rackets. Many wanted to help; nobody could. No one in the underworld recognised that mysterious face. He was as unknown as if he had lived in the 16th Century. One of our favourite Los Angeles movies, this is an astonishing combination of police procedural and post-war noir, concerning the crime spree of a returning veteran, a big social problem that beset the city in that era. Featuring a great titles and opening sequence, the semi-documentary form is hugely enhanced by the deep focus monochrome cinematography and lighting by the legendary John Alton and although it’s credited to director Alfred L.Werker it’s known that Anthony Mann played a role in helming this. The suspense, the chase, the topography of life above and below ground produce a narrative matrix that pays visual dividends (with photographic effects by George Teague) as all the technical stops are worked to identify Morgan who eventually becomes likened to a rat in a trap. The use of the LA sewer system is breathtaking (in every sense). It’s a bravura film, filled with memorable sequences and boasting a superb atmosphere in a tautly constructed plot about a disturbed loner. Written by John C. Higgins and producer Crane Wilbur based on Wilbur’s story, with additional dialogue by Harry Essex. Basehart is marvellous as the villain whom we come to admire merely for his ingenuity and survival and of course it’s an opportunity to see Webb shortly before his Dragnet days. And so the tedious quest went on. Sergeant Brennan wore out his shoes and his patience going from police station to police station, checking photos until his eyes were blurry. For police work is not all glamour and excitement and glory. There are days and days of routine, of tedious probing, of tireless searching. Fruitless days. Days when nothing goes right, when it seems as if no one could ever think his way through the maze of baffling trails a criminal leaves. But the answer to that is persistence and the hope that, sooner or later, something will turn up, some tiny lead that can grow into a warm trail and point to the cracking of a tough case MM# 4100 #300straightdaysofmondomovies

Mr Malcolm’s List (2022)

I insist on being allowed to propose. England,1818. Beautiful Julia Thistlewaite (Zawe Ashton) attends the opera with the most eligible bachelor of the season, Mr. Jeremy Malcolm (Sope Dirisu). After she fails to impress him she is widely mocked in an upsetting caricature. Julia employs her cousin, the feckless Lord Cassidy (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, to see what she has done to offend Mr. Malcolm. I have exact requirements when building a stable and more stringent requirements when finding a wife. Malcolm reveals to Cassidy that he has a list of requirements for a wife which Julia did not meet. They include: Candid, truthful and guileless, amiable and even-tempered, having musical talent, and also being able to talk about politics. Cassidy lets this slip to Julia who is offended: she made a fool of herself when Malcolm asked her about the Corn Laws which she interpreted to be a new diet. She’s handsome enough but she’s not the one for me. Julia decides to invite her old schoolfriend, clergyman’s daughter Selina Dalton (Freida Pinto) to London to get revenge on Malcolm, training the reluctant Selina to act as the perfect potential bride for the wealthy landowner. You have been cast into this world without fortune or prospects. On the night she is to meet Mr. Malcolm, Selina accidentally runs into him in the orangery where the two debate philosophy and are obviously attracted to one another. Then, when they are formally introduced, Mr. Malcolm invites Selina to the museum with him and he pleads his case with her that he and Julia had a very weak connection. They run into Captain Henry Ossery (Theo James) with whom Selina was previously acquainted, having served as his aunt’s companion in Bath. The following day, Ossery invites Selina to go walking with him and formally announces his intention to court her, as his aunt’s final letter to him expressed her desire for the two of them to be matched. However Malcolm does not stop his pursuit of Selina. Aided by Julia’s machinations, Selina continues to present herself to him as his perfect woman. When Julia and Selina accidentally run into Selina’s vulgar cousin Gertie Covington (Ashley Park) Julia claims her as her relation. Mr. Malcolm later privately expresses to Selina he is glad she is not related to someone so crass and this upsets Selina. When Mr. Malcolm learns the truth, he apologises to Selina and extends an invitation to Gertie to join him and the rest of the party at his country estate – where he intends to propose to Selina. Julia decides that Mr. Malcolm is suitably in love with Selina and determines the time has finally come for Selina to reject him. But Selina reveals she no longer wants to go forward with the plan: she thinks he is honourable and never had any intention of hurting Julia. At a masquerade, where Mr. Malcolm plans to propose to Selina, Julia has her maid call away Selina and lock her in a room, then sends a message to Mr. Malcolm to meet him in secret while posing as Selina and presenting him with her own list of requirements in a suitor. When Mr. Malcolm proposes, Julia rejects him and runs away, only to be immediately found out by Selina, Malcolm, and Ossery … And do you think you have never offended anyone? It happens, Julia. Several TV series have influenced this period romcom: Bridgerton, of course; Emily in Paris; and Gangs of London. How’s that?! A dreamboat; colour-blind casting; and an Austenesque story revolving around the romantic foibles of Regency society contemporise the genre without losing its pleasing attractions or invention. Adapted by Suzanne Allain from her own self-published novel, this is a sparky interpretation of the style with generous helpings of intrigue, mistaken identity, deception, revenge and a rather tasty masquerade ball, effectively staples of the traditional narrative which is of course a marriage plot (in every sense of the term). You are being blinded his intelligent conversation and devastatingly handsome good looks. It might however make the viewer nervous when Elliot Finch of Gangs … is presented as love’s young dream (although you have to hand it to Pinto, she’s ever youthful and lovely in the Elizabeth Bennet role). Luckily there’s James as the second male romantic lead. Witty performances by new and old names make this battle of the sexes a harmless and charming if slightly overlong (at 117 minutes) conventional romp. There’s a playful score by Amelia Warner. Directed by Emma Holly Jones who also directed the short in 2019 which starred Gemma Chan. No one wants a person incapable of forgiveness for a friend

Soldier Blue (1970)

It’s not her fault the Cheyennes grabbed her. Colorado Territory, 1877. Kathy Maribel ‘Cresta’ Lee (Candice Bergen) and Colorado Private Honus Gant (Peter Strauss) are joined together by fate when they are the only two survivors after their group is massacred by the Cheyenne tribe in an attack prompted by the cavalry’s. Gant is devoted to his country and duty; Cresta has lived with the Cheyenne for two years, is scornful of Gant and mockingly calls him ‘Soldier Blue’ and declares that in this conflict she sympathises with them,describing the horrors inflicted by the American soldiers on men, women and children which he cannot take in.. The two must now try to make it to the army camp at Fort Reunion where Cresta’s fiancé, army office Lt. McNair (Bob Carraway) waits for her. As they travel through the desert with very low supplies, hiding from the Indians, they are spotted by a group of Kiowa horsemen. Under pressure from Cresta, Honus fights and seriously wounds the group’s chief Running Fox (Jorge Russek) when the chief challenges him. Honus finds himself unable to kill the disgraced Kiowa leader – whose own men stab him in disgust! – riding off and leaving Honus and Cresta alone. The almost-puritanical Honus is disturbed by things Cresta barely notices and is shocked when he realises she lived with the Cheyenne chief as his wife. They are pursued by corrupt trader Isaac Q. Cucumber (Donald Pleasence) who Cresta says she doesn’t recognise. However Honus figures out that she met him when she was with the Cheyenne and that he’s selling guns to them – and Honus then proceeds to destroy this latest shipment of weapons. Cucumber shoots and injures Honus, who finds himself in a cave where Cresta leaves him to get help. She arrives at Fort Reunion, only to discover that her fiancé’s unit plans to attack the peaceful Indian village of the Cheyenne the following day under orders from Colonel Iverson (John Anderson) an obsessive madman. She rides to the village in time to warn Cheyenne chief Spotted Wolf (Jorge Rivero) – her former husband. He doesn’t acknowledge the danger and under two flags – the stars and stripes and a white truce – rides out to extend a hand of friendship to the American soldiers. The soldiers, however, obey the orders of their psychopathic commander and open artillery fire on the village … You look all shiny and beautiful like an angel. This avowed anti-Vietnam War allegory adapted by John Gay from the novel Arrow in the Sun by Theodore V. Olsen was a huge box office hit. A combination of romantic adventure and brutal anti-racist tract, its violence practically escalates it into the category of exploitation film. A devastating analogy with the My Lai massacre, this was the first depiction of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre and director Ralph Nelson and cinematographer Robert B. Hauser create an astonishing picture of frontierism and colonialism in action. The tone isn’t straightforward – Cresta is a lighthearted foul-mouthed product of hippiedom with her ‘bullshit’/’balls’ dialogue, her past shacked up with the supposed primitive male a shocking contrast with her origins in the civilised East; Honus is ‘honest’ and can’t comprehend what she’s telling him about soldiers’ behaviour towards the Native Americans – so their desert romance is far from conventional or equal. Her experience and her anticipation of what’s looming is pitted against his innocence and optimism. The gruesome massacre when it occurs verges on the unwatchable – from the graphic depiction of rapes, mutilations, burning, child murder and torture to the howling delight of the soldiers this proved unpopular in the US presumably because unlike the Fordian vision of the Cavalry these guys are cruel bloodthirsty maniacs: and it’s verifiable history. There’s a memorable score by Roy Budd and Buffy Sainte-Marie’s title song was a big hit. Director Nelson also plays Agent Long as ‘alf elson’. We can’t be ‘we’ anywhere else. When we go back it’s not ‘we’ any more

Jet Storm (1959)

Aka Jet Stream/Killing Urge. I just figured out I’m in direct line of fire. Grief-stricken and mentally ill Ernest Tilley (Richard Attenborough), a former scientist who lost his daughter two years earlier in a hit-and-run accident by a drunk driver, tracks down James Brock (George Rose), the man he believes is responsible for the accident and boards the same airliner on a transatlantic flight, flying from London to New York. Tilley is accompanied by his second wife Carol (Mai Zetterling) a nurse he met while in hospital the previous year. Ernest appears to have hidden a bomb on board and threatens to blow it up in an act of vengeance not only killing Brock but also all passengers and crew. Brock tries to evade explanations to his wife Rose (Megs Jenkins). When Captain Bardow (Stanley Baker) and the passengers realise that he is serious and they can’t loate the bomb (which Tilley had attached to the underside of the airliner’s left wing), they begin to panic. Some want to pressure him into revealing the location of the bomb, while others such as Jewish Doctor Bergstein (David Kossoff) try to reason with the now silent Tilley. Mulliner (Patrick Allen), a terrified passenger, whose class-consciousness is gently mocked by Inez Barrington (Elizabeth Sellars) who’s seated next to him, decides he’s better than the useless soldier he encounters, Colonel Coe (Cec Linder) and attempts to kill Brock to stop Tilley from setting off the bomb … I just want a man of action aboard this plane to do something about it. Writer/director Cy Endfield (or C. Raker Endfield as he’s billed here) effectively creates the disaster movie years before the Airport franchise with this British thriller. And what a cast list to make up the passengers who are equal parts hostage to fortune and reliable character turns. Where to start? Maybe with Hermione Baddeley as brash lower class widow Mrs Satterly raising hell and stirring everything even physically assaulting newbie air hostess Pam Leyton (the lovely and tragic Virginia Maskell) who’s also trying to fend off the attentions of the American co-pilot; pop singer Marty Wilde as – ta da! – pop singer Billy Forrester, who can barely keep his eyes or hands off his Bardotesque wife (Jackie Lane); comedian Harry Secombe as comic Binky Meadows who’s cracking wise and gently romancing Emma Morgan (Dame Sybil Thorndike); gorgeous Diane Cilento as nervous flyer Angelica Como who assists Pam and then tries to intervene with Ernest when he’s held in the aeroplane bar; the Tracer family, played by Paul Eddington and Lana Morris and their son Jeremy (Jeremy Judge) who’s used to try to intervene with Ernest in the hopes that a child can make him see reason; Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly as the Randolfs, a separating couple who wind up deciding against a divorce. And so on. The man who turns his head away is one with the sinner. A variety of psychological, personal and marital scenarios plays out among the glamorous jet set grouping as Ernest makes grandiloquent pronouncements on the dreadful state of humanity. You think you have a plane full of people here – you have a travelling zoo. His admission that as a chemical engineer his specialisation is unstable compounds elicits quite the reaction from stunned Captain Baker. Mr Tilley you’re a decent man. You must fight this madness with everything you’ve got. This is a smartly written race against time narrative, nicely characterised and performed by an incredible cast, particularly of course by Attenborough as the tragic, lost protagonist and Baker as the captain who displays real grace under pressure, with the only threat to the jeopardy at the story’s centre the use of unconvincing models as a toy jet (with enormously luxurious footroom and a generous lounge deck) dips and dives in the sky above Shepperton Studios. Wilde sings the title song which he composed, with lyrics by Endfield. Endfield had previously worked with Baker on Hell Drivers and Sea Fury; they would form a production company in the 1960s and probably their greatest collaboration would be Zulu. From his association with Orson Welles, to his magic tricks, his escape from blacklisting by the HUAC and his invention of the microwriter, Endfield had such an amazing life, we wonder why he’s never been the subject of a biopic. The screenplay was co-written by Sigmund Miller, based on his original story. Watch out for an uncredited Marianne Stone (we always do). If this thing blows up I’ll never travel by plane again

Cause for Alarm! (1951)

There’s nothing a woman likes better than showing a man around. Lovely Ellen (Loretta Young) recalls that she met Air Force pilot George Jones (Barry Sullivan) in a naval hospital during World War 2 while she was dating their mutual friend, young military doctor Lieutenant Ranney Grahame (Bruce Cowling) whose schedule barely left time for her. Ellen swiftly fell in love with him despite his evident capacity for arrogance and selfishness. They married and wound up in a leafy suburb in Los Angeles. Now George is now confined to his bed with heart problems. There is a heat wave and Ellen is spending her time caring for him. George’s doctor is their old friend Ranney and George thinks Ellen is having an affair. In response, Ranney suggests George might need psychological help. After Ellen tells her bedridden husband she dreams of having children, he becomes angry. Meanwhile, George has written a letter to the District Attorney claiming his wife and best friend are killing him with overdoses of heart medication. He was in love with her before I met her. Neighborhood boy (Billy Mora) dressed as the movie and TV cowboy, Hopalong Cassidy befriends Ellen and pesters her for cookies. He gives her a small toy (fake) television set and asks her to give it to George, which she does whilst serving her husband lunch in bed. He regales her with an unsettling story about how, as a child, he had beaten a neighbour boy with a rake until he drew blood. He asks her to send that letter he’s written .Thinking it has something to do with insurance, Ellen gives it to the postman (Irving Bacon) who moans about the heat and sees George peering from the curtains in the upstairs bedroom window. When Ellen rushes up to find out why he has got out of bed, George lets her know what the letter says and who it is addressed to. George pulls a gun and is about to kill her when he drops dead on the bed. In her voiceover narration she calls George’s death one of those awful dreams. Ellen panics over the letter and does everything she can to retrieve it … A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. This interesting domestic noir melodrama takes place in full daylight, in a heatwave, in the suburbs, with Young playing the most stunning housewife we’ve ever sign, perfectly dolled up in frills as she plays the devoted wife to a clearly paranoid husband. She recalls how they met, in the company of her friend and his, and the spiralling suspense of her husband stitching her up while she blames herself for his apparent illness and resultant paranoid depression is remarkably well paced. The minutiae of life in the ‘burbs, the annoying kid, the nosy neighbour, the fractious postman – what a drama is constructed when Ellen tries to get back the letter! – all those elements that could be irritating are built up and plundered to the nth degree and that’s before the aunt Mrs Warren (Georgia Backus) arrives, only to conclude marriage hasn’t improved her nasty nephew as she’d hoped. It’s co-written by Mel Dinelli (from a radio play by Larry Marcus) who had recently contributed that expert and stylish noir about a woman under threat, The Reckless Moment (as well as those great suspensers The Spiral Staircase and The Window) and if this doesn’t have the salty murderous tang of that Ophuls film it boasts a fine performance by Young, bedevilled by that vicious bedridden invalid husband calling the shots from the depths of his dangerous delusions. Produced and co-written by Young’s husband producer Tom Lewis, this was put together at speed, with a 14-day shoot, a lesson the pair learned for forthcoming The Loretta Young Show for the movies’ rival medium that gets a shoutout a couple of times here with a bit of mockery thrown in – a kids’ toy TV being seen as quite the coefficient to a real gogglebox. Effective, pacy storytelling and terrific performances mark this one out although the entire second half is (rather amusingly) dedicated for the most part to finding that pesky letter with unbelievable levels of red tape involved in that escapade – and then all these people show up at the front door. It’s enough to make Ellen tear her fabulous hair out and it’s styled by Sydney Guilaroff! Meanwhile, George is still dead. And it’s hot … Watch out for Richard Anderson as a sailor. The score is by Andre Previn. Directed by Tay Garnett. I knew that somewhere somehow I’d have to begin to live again but right then all I could do was pray to lose that one day, that one terrifying day