Last night, in "The Narrowing Circle", journalist "Dave Nelson" (Paul Carpenter), toiling at a magazine publishing house, longs to be a novelist and tapes his ideas during downtime in his office. He's miffed now that he has to share space with "Rosemary Speed" (Hazel Court), who covers women's issues, because she's everything he doesn't like in a woman: hard, careerist, and independent minded. He much prefers the gal over in the homemaking department, who's working on an article about eggless omelets. Dave's up for an editorship on a new all crime mag his publisher is premiering, and he's expected to get the job, but when he loses out to hotshot "Bill Strayte" (Ferdy Mayne), he goes to the homemaking writer's apartment to commiserate, only to find her entertaining Strayte. A punchout ensues, in which Dave beats up Strayte for stealing his gal, then - after saying he's gonna "finish him off" later - he heads out to get hammered and drown his sorrows. At a bar, he picks up a blonde. They go to a hotel. Dave wakes up alone in the morning, hung over, and when he stumbles back to his own abode, who should he find there but Bill Strayte, deader than a freaking doornail.
He knows immediately that somebody is trying to frame him, but Skeertlynd Yeeard shows up a minute later. Suddenly Dave's under suspicionalization of muh-dah. He swears he didn't do it, but can't prove where he was the night before. The Inspector offers to accompany him back to the hotel where he spent the night with the blond, but the clerk there says he's never seen Dave before. He knows the guy is lying, but the Inspector is not sympathetic. Finally, the barman recognises him, at the joint where he picked up the blond, and the Inspector backs off just a little, but he still can't find the chick Dave picked up. So much for his alibi.
Then the hotel clerk turns up dead, and Dave finds him. That's two bodies he's now "discovered" and the Inspector is not amused. By now, and because his not-so-sweet-and-innocent-after-all homemaker girlfriend has cheated on him, he makes friends with Miss Speed, the beautiful careerist ensconced in his office, who turns out to be a pretty cool gal. "I've always wanted to be a sleuth" she says, and she helps Dave investigate. While doing so, she recalls a case from down under in New Zealand (pron. Zelland) that is similar, and was a sensation in it's day. Two men committed a murdalization; one got away with it by killing the other. Working on that premise, they proceed to try and solve the case.
But then, when they finally locate blondy, whose name, they discover, is Christy, she turns up dead after a man dressed as the Invisible Man breaks into Dave's apartment and tries to kill him. Guess who discovers Christy's body? That's right, Dave Nelson. The Inspector is now scrutinizing the shenanigans of the many bodies involved in the case. Making matters worse is that Dave is the requisite American headliner in the movie. I dunno why the Brits were so fascinated with Yank actors. Maybe because we bailed them out of WW2. Or was it the other way around? Or did the Russkies bail us both out? Go figure. But they loved them some obscure American actors in their British b-movies. The romance between Dave and the beautiful Miss Speed (who turns out to be feminine and faithful after all), becomes more prominent as the plot goes forward. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Narrowing Circle". The picture is razor sharp and widescreen. I guessed who the framer was about halfway through, and you might, too, but it won't stop you from enjoying the movie. ////
The previous night's British crime film was "The Hideout"(1956), a flick that actually needed to be longer rather than shorter (as most movies do), because of the complexity of its plot. Some plots are convoluted. Complexity is a different thing, meaning merely a combination of many elements. Bob Dylan McDermot Walsh Mulroney plays insurance investigator "Steve Curry", who's headed to the airport as the movie opens. In line to board his plane, he accidentally picks up the wrong briefcase, belonging to pretty blonde "Helen Grant" (Rona Anderson). In trying to locate her in the lobby, he misses his flight, as does she, searching for her lost briefcase.
When Curry can't find Helen, he tries to bring the case back to his office, but gets mugged on the way by some hard guys who steal the case, but Curry's friend, a professional thief, steals it back, and has opened it to find 8 thousand pounds inside. The trouble with this exciting scenario is that no information is given whatsoever as to what is going on. It's just a briefcase picked up accidentally, that leads to a mugging, that leads to Steve's friend recovering the case and finding the money.
You the viewer, go: "Huh?"
Curry then locates Helen and her brother "Robert" (Ronald Howard), who don't wanna talk about the money inside the briefcase. In a subplot, there's a sea captain on the Thames, who's threatening Curry's sketchy friend not to double-cross him "on them furs." It seems the two have a schmuggling ring.
Then another element is introduced when Helen Grant spills the beans to Curry, that her brother Robert is a pawn broker with a side business in fur and meat trading - black market, illegal. "Please don't expose him," she begs. But then anthrax is discovered in a leg of schmuggled lamb. Anthrax! Holy Schmokes! Now the plot takes a disaster-movie turn, because the fur pelts were schmuggled with the lamb, so the fur has got anthrax nodules on it. A scene with a scientist in a lab ex-schplains all of the complications of anthrax.
So you see what I mean about an ambitious plot, in a movie that checks in at 54 minutes. IMDB fans have noted that the location shooting is a main draw, and they are correct. The London docks are dark and enormous, the grim side of England is gritty and really shiny at night in black and white, with black sedans cruising all over. It's just that you shouldn't - you cant - fit a Missing Cash-Filled Briefcase, an Anthrax Infected Leg of Lamb, and a Search for Fur Pelts into 54 minutes, in addition to trying to get Ronald Howard to admit he's a smuggler, and have a romance on top of that. The whole thing feels choppy, but Two Bigs because we love Brit movies in b&w with good location shooting from the late '50s. The picture is very good. ////
And that's all I know for tonight. I am happy to say that I have finished one of the two books I've been working on. I've began writing it in October 2021 (17 months ago), and have been polishing it ever since, while taking months off to also work on the second book, which is a companion piece to the first. I hope to have the second book finished no later than September, after which I will try to get them both published (something I know nothing about). If I can't get them published traditionally, I have self-publishing options like Amazon. The main thing for now is that it's been an Absolute Blast writing them. The subject is a very pleasant one for me, very uplifting, and I think folks will be surprised when they read them. And, I'm already working on a third book. That's what I'm gonna be doing for the rest of my life: writing books.
And this blog. My blogging music tonight was Mike Oldfield's "Music of the Spheres", my late night is Handel's Nabal Oratorio. I hope you had a very nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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