Hidden Homicide

The script keeps introducing and discarding characters at a bewildering rate, among them a furniture forger, a devious charlady, and a Wild West music-hall performer.

Murder At Shinglestrand. Hidden Homicide is directed by Tony Young and adapted to screenplay by Young and Bill Luckwell from the novel "Murder at Shinglestrand" written by Paul Capon. It stars Griffith Jones, James Kenney and Patricia Laffan. Music is by Otto Ferrari and cinematography by Ernest Palmer. A novelist wakes up to find a gun in his hand a relative murdered nearby. Did he do it? Who cares is the serious answer after sitting through this most turgid of "Z" grade Brit crime mysteries. There's just about enough material here to have made a half hour episode of some low rent Private Investigator show, but even then the logic holes and crumbling direction would struggle to hold the attention of the intelligent of mind. Also features one of the most irritating musical scores of the 50s (shudder). 2/10

"Cornforth" (Griffiths Jones) wakes up, fully clothed, in a strange house in the middle of nowhere. He has no idea how he got there, nor why he has a gun in his hand and why... wait for it... there is a corpse in the kitchen. To add to his confusion, he is joined by two rain-soaked backpackers - "Jean" (Patricia Laffan) and "Marian" (Maya Koumani). When they discover his secret they try to skedaddle only to be prevented from doing so by their befuddled host. What now ensues is really a rather daft murder mystery that involves him and the now somewhat miraculously convinced "Jean" returning to London where they try to get to the bottom of this increasingly far-fetched conundrum. It is pretty obvious - once we are back in civilisation and amongst a cast that includes the usually reliable Bruce Seton and the plummy, easy on the eye, James Kenney - who is behind the crime, even though the motive remains curiously elusive right until the last few scenes. It's not the worst, it's clearly just a job of work for all concerned with an unremarkable script and some equally forgettable performances that passes an hour or so, but not in any way remotely memorable.

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