Last night's film "Burnt Evidence"(1954), is about a man with a cheating wife who is pushed to the brink of suicide. "Jack Taylor" (Duncan Lamont) runs an electrical workshop in a small English town. As the movie opens, he arrives at work looking downcast, for the news isn't good. He's a month behind on his rent and can't collect on the jobs he's contracted for because hes too "soft" a man, in his wife's words, to put his foot down with clients. He does the work and they never pay, or they string him along. He's a good man and an Army vet, but people take advantage of him. The landlord of his shop wants his rent, and Jack and his wife are two weeks behind at home. He has to let his young assistant go: "Sorry, Johnny. You'd better start looking for something else."
At home, his wife "Diana" (Jane Hylton) has his best friend over. "Look" says the friend, whose name is "Jimmy Thompson" (Donald Gray), "we've got to tell Jack about us. it's only right." Jimmy was in the Army with Jack, and has just enough loyalty to want to inform him that he's sleeping with his wife. She, on the other hand, doesn't want to tell Jack. Not that she loves him, but "he's a good man and tries so hard...."
When Jack comes home that evening, Diana has his dinner ready. She is fond of him (fond being different than still attracted) and she has an attachment to their marriage but she loves Jimmy, or rather she lusts after him - huge difference. But all is well at dinner until Jack finds Jimmy's left-behind cigarette case (and no, it's not the sterling silver anti-radiation cigarette case from "Mark of the Phoenix"). Now he knows that Jimmy and Diana are fooling around behind his back, and later that night, after confronting Jimmy and socking him on the jaw, he writes a suicide note. Then he takes his gun out of a sock in his drawer and heads back to his shop to get the deed done. But Jimmy shows up to stop him, and a schtruggle ensues, which is filmed in a sudden change to chiaroscuro, so you know someone is about to die. Remember, Jack brought his gun to commit suicide, and now BANG!
Someone just got shot.
Just after that, a cigarette that was left burning on a workbench falls into some straw and whummo! A full-on conflagration burns the joint down. The fire brigade puts it out and discovers the charred-beyond-recog body of whomever was shot. Diana is sure it has to be Jack, because she just got his suicide note in the mail, but the cops aren't so sure, and a plot that begins as a romantic-triangle-turned-tragic becomes a police procedural at the 25 minute mark. New boy detective "Bob Edwards" (Meredith Edwards) is overly ambitious in his theories, jumping to unwarranted conclusions concerning the identity of the dead man. Bob's a sharp cookie, but he doesn't wait for the medical examiner's evidence. Who is the deceased, anyway? The Taylors have a boarder named "Mrs. Raymond" (Irene Handl), who serves as a gossipy, overly-nice-on-purpose source of info for the police.
The plot leads you to believe in a certain type of conclusion and you may or may not be surprised, disappointed, or otherwise, but the message of the flick is the sanctity of marriage and the decency of the working man. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Burnt Evidence" and a high recommendation, especially for the excellent black and white photography. The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night we had yet another British movie, "Private Information"(1952), about a woman who stands up to the mayor of her village and the head of the archi-textural firm who built her council house. It all starts when "Charlotte" (Jill Esmond) and her daughter notice shoddy workmanship in their home: windows that won't open, doorknobs falling off, and walls that are so thin "you could put a finger through them." But that's not the half of it. Charlotte's son, who works for the firm as an in-schpector, has filed a report on a number of similar complaints, and has turned up evidence of faulty plumbing and sinking foundations. Drainage is a particular problem. He shows his findings to his boss, "Mr. Freemantle" (Norman Shelly), who is also his girlfriend's father, but Freemantle says the whole thing is overblown. "Nothing to worry about. Those things can be repaired, and aren't a result of our construction. Lets keep the report confidential, shall we?" Translation: "if we don't announce the findings, we can't be held responsible, and there's no reason for a tempest in a Veddy Brrrittish teapot." But Charlotte thinks there is, and when the mayor calls a town meeting to discuss the problem, she speaks up.
Having inside information on the findings of her son, because her daughter got a look at the report, she stands in front of the mayor at the hearing and declares what she knows, concluding by saying it was probably the result of a bribe. "No one does shoddy work on purpose, and these council houses were payed for with public funds."
The mayor gets up in arms, though we know he's guilty. (I didn't get harrumph outta that guy!) He ends the meeting abruptly, then sends his haughty wife over to Charlotte's house to demand a signed apology, to be read at another public meeting. They want to humiliate her for telling the truth. At first, she's so intimidated by the wife's unannounced visit, and her threats, that she agrees to sign the apology. But then she gets a second visit from a German expatriate newsman, who - having fled Nazism - urges her not to sign the fallacious document. "I will stand by you and print the truth in my paper". Charlotte still isn't sure if she can go through with it, and her son is caught in the middle as a member of the building firm. He's also the guy who filed the report. But the mayor and Mr. Freemantle have formed a wall, and it's hard to get the truth out when people with more power than you want to keep it silent. But Charlotte, now supported by her newspaper friend, decides not to sign the apology after all. At the second meeting, she explains how she was coerced, and now the townsfolk, who've experienced problems in their own shoddy houses but were too shy to speak up, are championing her. Emboldened, Charlotte stands her ground, even when threatened with libel.
Her daughter, a budding writer, has been suffering from headaches for a while. The two of them think it's from too much reading and typing, but her pain gets so bad she has to go to the hospital. At the same time, a typhoid outbreak is discovered in the council row. The drainage problem (i.e. sewage in the water) is found to be the culprit. Charlotte's daughter gets so sick it looks like she might die. The mayor and Mr. Freemantle are now exposed in their cover-up, but will typhoid kill all the homeowners? The movie is from a play and exceptionally well done, though simple in plot. It's all about standing your ground in the face of corrupt power, which few do. Two Big Thumbs Up, and a fine performance from Jill Esmond, who was Lawrence Olivier's second wife. The picture is razor sharp. ////
And that's all for this evening. My blogging music is Steve Hackett's "Voyage of the Acolyte", my late night is Handel's Solomon Opera, I hope you are having a good week and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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