We were talking about endings in the last blog, and how sometimes you expect a Big Payoff, because the plot has been built up to deliver one. Occasionally you're let down; other times you're handsomely rewarded. The latter is most definitely the case with our latest movie, a thriller called "The Third Alibi"(1961). Get ready for a wind-up and then some! "Norman Martell" (Laurence Payne) is a theater composer who's having an affair with his wife's sister. When we first see him, he's at home during a party. While his wife (Patricia Dainton) sees off departing guests, Norman remains in his music room, working on a composition. With him is "Peggy", his sister-in-law, who looks on in admiration from the piano lid. There's something else in her eye as well (could it be lust?), but she controls it. Her sister - Norman's wife - has just entered the room to report the end of the gathering. "Well, they've all gone home now. I wish you could've spent more time tonight, Norman. Everyone would've loved to say hello". Norman's face is set in concentration. "Yes, I know they would've, but I'm on a deadline here. I've got to finish this piece by tomorrow". His music may be on his mind, but that's not all Norman's thinking about. Peggy needs a ride home. How convenient.
"I'll take you", Norman says. "How about another drink first"? They deliberately avoid too much eye contact or over-familiarity, keeping it strictly "in-laws" in front of of Helen, Norman's wife. She suspects nothing, thinking only that Norman seems strained.
Once he's in the car with Peggy, however, the tension is gone. He lets loose while driving, leaning over to kiss her neck. They're on an old country road. The night is pitch black. They see only what the headlights show them and......."look out, Norman! There's a man standing in the...." Slammo!
Norman swerves, but the car clips the man, some elderly pedestrian out walking late at night. He's sent flying end over end, into some bushes in the roadside darkness. "Stop, Norman, stop"!, Peggy cries, but Norman just drives faster. His face is once again set in that look of consternation he had at home a little earlier. "I'll not stop"!, he replies. "It was just some old coot. He had no business being in the road at this hour, and I'm not going to jeopardize my career for something that wasn't my fault".
"But what if he's dead"?, Peggy asks. "You could be brought up on manslaughter". "All the more reason to keep going", says Norman. "I didn't see him, I tried to swerve, he shouldn't have been walking there, it was his fault not mine". Thus ends the discussion. They keep driving to Peggy's house, where they have another drink and calm down. The next day, the matter is forgotten. Nothing's in the paper. "The old codger must've lived, or it would've been reported".
Norman finishes his new music, and in between rehearsals, he visits Peggy, who's on to more important matters : "When are you gonna divorce her"? Meaning Helen. He can't get up the nerve to tell his wife about the affair, but Peggy presses, and when he does, Helen is furious. "With my own sister?! You've got to be kidding! No, Norman, I absolutely will not grant you a divorce! You'll not shame me in this way. You've made your bed - so to speak - and now you're going to have to lie in it. You can sleep with my sister, and you two deserve each other, but you're going to be married to me for the rest of your life. I hope it's long".
To complicate matters, Peggy becomes pregnant. Having an illegitimate child in England in 1961 was a no-no (think of what our friend Mrs. Jones would say, oh my goodness).
One day, while Norman is recording some piano music, he gets an idea involving his tape recorder. In the next scene we see him at Peggy's house, instructing her on how to use the machine, which buttons to press and when to press them, and at what specific time. When he's done, he asks her to repeat what he's said. What are they up to? Could it be a murder plot?
The problem is, that his wife has overheard the entire conversation. She's just come back from her doctor's office, where she received some terrible news. She's got a heart condition, and only has a few months to live. She wanted to inform her husband, which is why she's come over to Peggy's. They don't know she heard them, so they finalize and carry out their plan. Or at least they begin to.
The specifics involve the creation of three alibis, one for Peggy and two for Norman, who is to carry out the murder of his wife by shooting her in their home. The first alibi, for Peggy, involves her being seen at the movie theater. It's complex but quite do-able. The second alibi requires the tape recorder to replay Norman's voice on the telephone (you'll see why). The third alibi, which may be the most important, has to do with eyewitness testimony. You see, behind Norman's house is a hill that sits on county land. It's an open area, anyone can camp there. Lately, a homeless man has taken up residence in his caravan (RV). "He's the original Nosy Parker", Norman tells Peggy. "He sits outside on a lawn chair all day, looking down on our property. I want him to see me going in with a gun, only I'll be wearing an old coat and hat. He'll think it's someone else and that's what he'll tell the police, if they ask. That, and my voice on the tape will clear me of any suspicion".
It gets complicated, however, when during the actual scenario, the doctor arrives at the Martell's door to check up on Helen.
Norman didn't plan for that, so he flees back to Peggy's house, only to find her......dead! Holy Paul Shortino! Who the hell did it? Norman is spooked and tries to flee that scene also, but the coppers are coming up the driveway. His exit is too late.
Now the real mystery begins, when the police question Norman, who becomes more nervous by the second. He knows he didn't murder his sister-in-law, but how to explain that to the police without revealing the plan to kill his wife?
Unfortunately for Norman, one of his alibis is being questioned. The cops have brought in the telephone operator who heard his taped voice. Does she know it was a recording? Helen is also interviewed. Her time frame testimony doesn't match with Norman's. Is she hanging him out to dry? We know the answer to that, but Norman doesn't. Here's where the plot layering is superb. One by one, the threads of Norman's story are unraveled, his perfect murder plot comes undone. We watch him squirm and protest, and he can't understand - how in the world was it figured out? It seems impossible. Even then, he's got his final alibi to fall back on, the third alibi of the title, the one involving an eyewitness. Do you remember the homeless man in the trailer on the hill? Good, because that's all I'm going to tell you. "The Third Alibi" is one of the best thrillers we've seen in our recent run. It was adapted from a stage play, and every scene fits like a puzzle piece. Laurence Payne excels as the cunning, duplicitous Norman. Patricia Dainton is effective as Helen, who finds her backbone after years of being a submissive wife. This one gets Two Huge Thumbs Up, one of our highest ratings in a while, and it's very highly recommended. The print is razor sharp. /////
The previous night we had yet another movie where an Ordinary Joe goes up against a Gang of Criminals. Think "Never Let Go" with Peter Sellers and "Hot Cars" with John Bromfield. Instead of cars, they're stealing jewels, but there's a garage involved (pronounced GARE- ahge once again, as this is a British film), and the protagonist drives a cab. The most important point is that once he becomes involved with the gang - unwittingly of course - he absolutely will not let it go. That's why the Sellers movie was called "Never Let Go", because if you're an organised criminal in England, and you mess with a regular bloke, he's simply not going to let the matter drop. It must be a Britttissh thing, but you'd think the criminals would've learned by now : don't mess with Mr. Average.
Richard Attenborough stars as "Ted Peters", the aforementioned cabbie, in "Dancing with Crime"(1947). He's a war vet, driving a taxi to make ends meet. As the movie opens, he's in line at a nightclub with his fiancee Joy (Sheila Sim). The doorman won't let them in, until Ted name drops a friend, his old WW2 sidekick "Dave Robinson" (Bill Rowbotham). After a couple beers and a dance, Joy begs off ("I've got to be up early"), and Dave asks Ted for a ride to another joint, the Palais de Dance (yes, Benny's still the Bouncer). En route, Dave asks Ted how he's doing financially. "Oh, hangin' in, just drivin' this rig until I find something better". Dave, a smooth operator since Ted has known him, offers Ted a shot at some easy money. "We've got this jewelry racket. All you'd have to do is drive. It'd be a transport thing basically. Your cab would be the perfect cover".
Ted declines, but with a smile for his old pal. "Aw, thanks Dave, but that kind of thing wouldn't be right for me".
The next we see Dave, he's confronting his boss, the Palais' owner, who's also the head of the jewel ring. "Fifty quid? That's all you're payin' me after I brought you 30 grand? You can slag it and sod off"! Dave's referring to the latest haul he procured. He slaps the boss and threatens him. "I don't need you, it's the other way around". The boss may be a wimp, but he's still the shot caller. He rings downstairs for his floor man, the club's tuxedoed MC. "Baker, I need you to stop Dave. He's gotten too big for his britches if you know what I mean. He just left here a moment ago. Take care of it, would you"?
Dave's on the sidewalk, sauntering away when he gets a bullet in the back from Baker. He manages to stumble to safety, crawling into a cab, Ted's cab, which is parked in it's usual spot. Ted's not inside, but when he returns and drives off, he's unaware that Dave is in back, bleeding to death. When it all comes to light the next morning, Ted is the initial suspect.
"But Inspector, I swear, me 'n Dave was pals. I've known 'im since the war. We've never 'ad no grudges and I'm not the one who killed 'im".
"Well then who did"? - The Inspector.
"Ain't that your job to decipher? But hey, Sir, Dave might've mixed with some questionable company. He had me drop 'im at a dance hall earlier last night. Just before that he offered me a job deliverin' stolen trinkets.....you know, rings n' necklaces n' the like".
Ted directs the the Inspector to the Palais, where he shows the owner a picture of Dave Robinson. "Did you see this man here last night"? "Hmmm......no sir, can't say that I did. Why, what's the trouble"? "He was shot and then driven away by a cab driver close to here. Cabbie says he dropped the man at your place a while earlier".
The owner - another Legitimate Businessman (yeah sure) - stonewalls the Inspector, who leaves but returns later with a photo, a glossy 8 x 10 studio shot of one of the dance hall girls. "Hello again. Do you know this woman"? "Yes, that's Toni, one of our regular dancers. Why do you ask"? "Because this picture was found among Dave Robinson's belongings". "Okay, but that doesn't mean much. Our girls often give out photos, it's good for business, and Toni is very popular with our customers. This Robinson fella must've danced with her some night, that's all that means. I still tell you I've never seen the man".
The Inspector talks to Toni, who denies knowing Dave Robinson. By now, Ted is getting frustrated with the lack of results from the police, especially since he's not off the hook as a suspect. He gets an idea, to have his fiancee Joy infiltrate the dance club. She's trained in ballet, so ballroom is no problem. She's also a looker and the owner hires her right away. Once Joy is in place, she starts to pry information out of Baker the MC, with a view to becoming part of the jewel ring. No one knows that she's the cab driver's girlfriend. Ted uses her info to form his own investigation, to bring back proof to the police.
We saw a similar context in "Never Let Go", where Richard Todd (as the Everyman) tried to get the goods on Peter Sellers. As in that movie, the police tell Richard Attenborough (Ted) to stay out of it and "allow us to conduct our investigation". Of course, because of the setup he's absolutely not gonna do that, and Ted gets in deeper with the crooks as Joy becomes closer to Baker. I had one problem with the inevitable confrontation, however. With Richard Todd versus Sellers (in "NLG"), you had two men who, though of opposite dispositions (one meek, one psycho), were of similar physical stature. So when the eventual punchout ensued, it was not altogether unbelievable. But in this movie, Richard Attenborough, while scrappy (and his character is a war vet, i.e. a fighting man), is just too diminutive to be convincing as he kicks the you-know-what out of big, burly hoodlums. That's a minor complaint, though, and if you can let it go, you'll enjoy the film very much. Judy Kelly is good in support as the jaded dancer Toni, who also stands up to the club owner, and Sheila Sim (Attenborough's real life wife) is strong as Joy, who goes undercover to take down the criminals with her boyfriend. Strike another blow for Merry Olde England, it's citizens and tradition (marriage, family and war service). The bad guys in these movies have no chance.
Two Big Thumbs Up, then, for "Dancing With Crime", which is also highly recommended. Richard Attenborough might be another actor we could do a John Mills on. Let's look for more from him.
That's all for now. I hope you're enjoying your weekend. Tons and tons of love as always! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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