The Teckman Mystery (1954) User Reviews

A really good one

[robert-temple-1 · 7/10 · 9 February 2016]

This fifties British mystery film holds together and is very good. It was based on a mystery tale by Francis Durbridge which had been filmed as a six-part BBC television series only the year before, entitled THE TECKMAN BIOGRAPHY (1953-4), with a now forgotten cast, which has never been reviewed, and is presumably lost. The story, being here greatly compressed, thus has a great deal of meat to it and is never short on substance. The film was the first feature film directed by Wendy Toye (1917-2010), a multi-talented woman who was also an actress, choreographer, dance instructor, ballet dancer, writer, producer, and stage director. She did an excellent job of directing this film, which is a true British film noir. John Justin and Margaret Leighton are the leads and they do very well. Leighton is very good at ambiguity and impenetrable mystery. Roland Culver plays a dogged police inspector and Michael Medwin plays the elusive Martin Teckman, who turns out not to have died as a test pilot in the dramatic crash of an experimental plane after all, but turns up in the middle of the film very much alive but very much on the run. It is a good and intriguing espionage yarn.

Mystery Becomes Suspense

[boblipton · 7/10 · 11 November 2020]

John Justin is a writer flying home to London to argue that he shouldn't write the biography of a test pilot whose plane crashed. As he sits on the plane, Margaret Leighton is seated next to him, reading a magazine with a story by him. They get to chatting and he discovers she is the sister of the pilot. He decides to write the book, but as he does his research, the people he wishes to speak to keep dying.

It's a nice little mystery, with director Wendy Toye adhering to many of the conventions of the British film genre, including the police actually knowing how to do their job. It's not a terribly deep mystery, but it does turn into an interesting movie in terms of suspense: The audience and Justin have all the clues they need, and Justin's inability to see the solution puts him at risk. It makes you want to shout at him.

Worth watching for the first hour, but then quickly fizzles out!

[geoffm60295 · 5/10 · 23 June 2020]

A film about a missing test pilot and Cold War espionage seem a promising foundation for 90 minutes of drama and entertainment. However, despite the first hour of the film offering an exciting, if convoluted narrative, the last 30 minutes drags, meanders and eventually loses its way, mainly due to the fact that the storyline seems to present a very far fetched and tedious series of events. Likeable John Justin, puts in a sound and smooth performance as the writer, who gets caught up in a web of intrigue. The splendid Raymond Huntley, as the publisher, and Roland Culver, as the MI5 officer, offer sterling support, but their lack of screen time give them little time to display their considerable acting skills. On the other hand, Margaret Leighton is woefully miscast as the fraught sister of the missing pilot. She is too cold, detached and always dressed as if she was going to a cocktail party! When she's on the screen, she displays no nuances of emotion, and whatever the scene, her voice and manner remain the same! The ending of the film is sloppily done, disappointing and unconvincing! This is very much a film which shows great promise at the start, but then fizzles out too soon.

British noir may appeal to design historians

[lucyrfisher · 26 September 2016]

This is based on a story by Francis Durbridge, so we can sit back and enjoy an episodic tale with a twist every ten minutes, in a setting of luxury, cocktails and ever-present cigarettes. Everybody has a fag in their hand the entire time. Roland Culver and Raymond Huntley are always worth watching, and I liked the dry inspector and the bouncy valet. Never mind the plot (actually do, it's a great Durbridge plot), writer Philip Chance's flat has a Whistlerian mural in the entrance hall and is stuffed with antiques and Chinese vases, piquantly set off by modernist paintings by a follower of Braque. (Writers earned more in those days.) Helen Teckman's flat (from the sketches lying about she must a dress designer but this is oddly never mentioned) is full of Lucienne Day textiles and modernist sculptures that get mistaken for ashtrays. Michael Medwin is good as the missing pilot, though you wonder why he never got his teeth fixed. Margaret Leighton as Helen is extraordinary. She is still wearing 30s eyebrows. She makes her second appearance, just dropping by Chance's flat about dinnertime, dressed as if for a Buckingham Palace garden party in a hat and an extraordinary dress with a demi-crinoline that starts life about halfway down her thighs, set off with pearls and a fur wrap. And gloves and a charm bracelet. Yes, she is the height of glamour, but painfully, painfully thin. Her legs look like twiglets. She keeps getting asked out to dinner and lunch, and she even offers Chance tea with sandwiches, but does she ever eat anything? Jane Wenham is good as the pilot's wife. The view from all windows is of a skillful painting of a London skyline, but there are some location scenes - especially in the gripping denouement at the Tower. As well as smoking all the time, everybody drinks too much and this is thought to be terribly witty. A marvellous period piece.

Large glass of Cabernet Sauvignon

[sb19034 · 7/10 · 16 December 2020]

Just enjoy the neat scripting and plot subtleties.

Run-of-the-mill Mystery with an Incomprehsible Plot

[l_rawjalaurence · 6/10 · 1 February 2018]

THE TECKMAN MYSTERY is the kind of programmer that routinely appears on television but regularly released in cinemas in the Forties and Fifties. It concerns a writer, Philip Chance who is asked to write a book about a recently-deceased pilot Martin Teckman. Initially reluctant to do so, he is drawn into a web of intrigue, organized by Martin's sister (Margaret Leighton), in which Martin is revealed to be not dead at all but the victim of a conspiracy that leads to his attempt to kill himself.

The film offers some good exterior shots of mid-Fifties London, with mercifully less traffic but plenty of secret areas where corruption thrives. The cast don't have too much to do with their roles: Justin acts the part of the debonair writer in more danger than he thinks, while Leighton is marginally too old for her role. Lovers of Fifties curiosities will note that this thriller is directed by a woman, Wendy Toye, one of the few British women to be operative at that time.

Far Too Long-Winded a Mystery

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 15 July 2009]

Considering Miss Toye's over-vaunted reputation with the "in" crowd, it's a wonder this extremely middling "A" feature hasn't made it to DVD. Perhaps even the most desperate distributor would admit that 90 minutes is far too long to engage even the most amiable viewer in a mystery that most disappointingly turns on that over-used plot device: spies. Miss Toye's plodding, stolidly unimaginative direction doesn't help. Neither does Margaret Leighton's rather flat portrayal. Admittedly she is saddled with a thoroughly unconvincing part. Justin does what he can to fill the gap, playing with so much more animation than usual that he could be accused of over-acting. Roland Culver, alas, is saddled with a role that is both small and colorless. Raymond Huntley, it appears at the conclusion, was supposed to be a red herring, but his acting is so stiff that few, if any viewers, would even consider him as a suspect. Likewise Michael Medwin seems thoroughly unconvincing as the subject of a smash-hit biography. Fortunately, Duncan Lamont comes across as an absolute delight as the sarcastic police inspector. All told, however, the film is weighed way down with a surfeit of talk. Twenty minutes of deft editing would certainly improve an audience's lot, even if it meant postponing Miss Leighton's entrance and eliminating the final super-mild exit in the plane. Assistant art director: John Hoesli. Production manager: John Palmer. Assistant directors: Adrian Pryce-Jones, Peter Maxwell. Set continuity: Shirley Barnes. Music played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Western Electric Sound Recording.

Hero by chance.

[ulicknormanowen · 7/10 · 4 May 2022]

Good spy thriller ,with a strong Hitchcockian influence SPOILERS Margaret Leighton was often cast in "AH presents" and she had a supporting part in "under capricorn" ; she represents the older woman who dominates her son (in "notorious " and others) or here her weak brother :although she reveals her true colours late through the movie, one feels something is wrong in her attitude :the meeting on the plane ,the room she leaves ,the letter in her hand ,when Chance is fixing her a drink.

Philip Chance is a reluctant hero ,who gets involved in the story by.... chance and who is almost always overtaken by events:he's akin to some Hitchcock heroes :Robert Donat in" the thirty -nine steps " ,Robert Cummings in " saboteur" and later Cary Grant in "north by norwest ";his naivete knows no bounds:how can he believe he can be offered such a hefty sum for a series of articles about a city (Berlin) where he has never set foot in ?John Justin opts for a tongue-in-cheek performance ,with a lot of humor ,which is fine with me .

The "McGuffin" which drives the movie forwards is vague, a la "thirty-nine steps " or "noth by norwest ",(is she working for the reds?) but it does not matter for there's no letup as the movie continues to build in suspense till the final in the tower of London ( another nod to AH whose "saboteur" ended in the statue of liberty?)

Would-be Hitchcock, but far from it

[dierregi · 6/10 · 11 April 2022]

Writer Philip Chance meets attractive Helen on his flight from France to London. Helen happens to be the sister of Martin, a test pilot who disappeared six months previously and about whom Philip's publisher wants Philip to write a biography. What are the chances?

In the meantime, Philip's flat is burglarized and then a homicide takes place there. The hapless Philip starts to suspect that Martin may be alive while falling in love with the mysterious Helen.

Some sequences reminded me of Hitchcock, although the whole movie doesn't stand the test because the McGuffin is too flimsy even for a McGuffin. Still, a decent thriller with a plot that works even without a deafening soundtrack or freely unleashed profanities as is the case nowadays.

slow British mystery

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 11 November 2020]

Helen Teckman and Philip Chance are strangers sitting next to each other on a plane. She's reading a book which happens to be authored by him. He's been assigned to write a biography of test pilot Martin Teckman who died a few months earlier and happens to be her brother. He returns home to find it ransacked. He starts investigating Martin's crash of an experimental plane.

The start is intriguing. The investigating goes slowly. It's a lot of sitting around and talking. With all the murders and deaths, one expects more thrills. It lacks kinetic energy and falters in intensity. The characters are more likely to have a long relaxing smoke or drink tea than get into a fight. Time and time again. The movie likes to dwell on their boring static conversations. It's slow and the style isn't much of anything. I'm still interested in the central mystery but the movie is not making it that exciting.

The Teckman Mystery

[mcannady1 · 8/10 · 4 February 2015]

I just wanted to say a few words about this gem of a film. I gladly watched the 90 minutes and enjoyed all of the suspense. I ordered this film as I like British Film Noir and I happened to notice Margaret Leighton's name topping the cast. I am also a John Justin and Raymond Huntley fan too! It is always nice to see Jane Wenhem who is little known. The photography is really done very nicely. Once I started watching I had to see what happened to the brother who was suspiciously murdered. From the first engaging moments through the rest of the film I really got caught up in the suspense! I think the entire film was wrapped up in a tidy way. At the end we find that things work out unexpectedly! But we still have enjoyed watching.

Impenetrable plot.

[johnshephard-83682 · 5/10 · 9 September 2020]

Incredibly convoluted Francis Durbridge mystery whose revelation of the chief villain at the end undoes much of the logic of what has gone before. Trying to piece together a coherent summary of the plot, explaining who did what, and for what purpose is virtually impossible. It's one of those films where people seem to wander in and out of each other's flat at will, the hero has a comedy manservant, the heroine is permanently dressed for a ball at some posh venue, nobody asks obvious questions, or accepts unconvincing answers if they do ask, and character motivations appear to change without reason. For example, we discover that Margaret Leighton is on the side of the baddies, some kind of foreign spy outfit, whose motivation from reel one is to get John Justin out of the way before he discovers their secret. They trap him into flying to Berlin, where he will clearly meet his fate, yet it is Leighton's tip to the police that rescues him?? There's lots of guff with notes, and assignations, and mystery men hanging about on street corners to no apparent purpose. Towards the end the police ask for Justin's help in catching the villain, and this involves taking her out to lunch, for reasons best kept to themselves. And then, of course, they let him tag along with them as they head for the final showdown, as coppers in this kind of caper are obliged to do so that the hero can be in at the death. There's an attempt at a touch of Hitchcock in the denouement at the Tower of London involving some nuns, then the Leighton character flees up the stairs of another tower (of course she does), and you immediately know that she won't be using the stairs to come down, instead falling from a great height when she briefly touches the flimsiest wall possible. Sort of entertaining, but don't expect it to make any sense.

A standard 1950s British crime films

[vampire_hounddog · 4/10 · 4 August 2020]

A writer (John Justin) finds himself stumbling into a mystery involving a murdered test pilot and a mysterious woman (Margaret Leighton).

Based off a novel and adapted by Frances Durbridge, this is a pretty standard crime film among the hundreds that were churned out in the 1950s, but good fun.

Intriguing Mystery

[ardenphillips · 9/10 · 11 November 2020]

Nice post-war British espionage mystery. Clever and wonderfully acted. Margaret Leighton super (of course), but whole cast top notch.

Dull overplotted thriller

[malcolmgsw · 4/10 · 23 August 2019]

I have never been keen on Francis Durbridges thriller.This underlines the reasons.The complex plotting undermines rather than adds to suspense.You loose track of what is going on.So the film could easily loose 20 minutes.Margaret Leighton is miscast.This was a part for Jean Kent or Googie Withers.

Rather tiresome

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 11 February 2020]

THE TECKMAN MYSTERY is very much a B-movie mystery of the era, written by Francis Durbridge who was no stranger to the genre. It involves a writer investigating the mysterious death of a pilot who (spoiler alert) eventually turns out to still be alive, and his investigation leads to the man's sister as played by Margaret Leighton. It's a slightly sluggish affair, not helped by an over-complicated storyline that ends up more annoying than involving. There are some familiar faces in the cast including the usual reliables like Michael Medwin, Raymond Huntley and Sam Kydd and they're always welcome, but overall this is rather tiresome.

A cracking mystery.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 11 November 2015]

Novelist Philip Chance is pushed into writing a biography about young Pilot Martin Teckman, a young man that died testing a plane (The F109.) He's all set to begin when he gets a job offer in Germany that's almost too good to be true, after being out celebrating with his publisher Maurice Milller he returns home to find a dead man, Garvin, in his living room. Garvin was known to Maurice, and was a friend of Teckman. Philip had made the acquaintance of Teckman's sister Helen on a flight home, she's quizzed by Inspector Hilton and Major Harris. Garvin had worked on the test plane with Teckman. Philip is pulled off his flight, and Helen gets a phone call from whom she thinks is her brother.

Frances Durbridge's work has been made adapted several times, but there is always a particular flavour to his work, so much mystery, suspense and intrigue. I'm a huge fan of Melissa, a series penned by Frances, there are definitely similarities.

Really enjoyable film, lovely performances, John Justice and Margaret Leighton were particularly good, you are literally left guessing until the very last, 8/10

teckman mystery

[mossgrymk · 5/10 · 3 December 2020]

Not much of a mystery or a movie, either. Indeed, if it weren't for the fact that it was directed by a woman at a time when gals not named Ida Lupino weren't doing that kind of thing it'd hardly be worth mentioning. Solid C. PS...John Justin and Margaret Leighton have less sexual chem than Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower.

Nothing missing here

[Braderz65 · 10/10 · 19 August 2020]

Brilliant from start to finish.can't understand low review of some.Excellent plot start middle and end.

Not incomprehensible at all

[atrickyone · 9/10 · 1 January 2022]

Several of the reviews disparage the film as difficult to follow. I have the same complaint about plotting more often than I'd like to admit, but this intriguing mystery wasn't that thorny as long as you concentrated. Maybe the reviewers were too idle to use their brains. Either way, it was gripping from start to finish.

Good Old Fifties Brit Thriller

[TondaCoolwal · 8/10 · 14 February 2020]

John Justin is best (only) known from The Thief Of Baghdad, and even then he played second fiddle to Sabu! I've always liked him and will make a point of seeking out his films. Talking Pictures Channel is very helpful in this regard with its content. At first this movie sounded rather dull, but once I got into it, I found it very enjoyable, if convoluted. Justin plays writer Philip Chance who is asked to write a biography of recently deceased test pilot Martin Teckman. Strangely, he finds himself seated next to Teckman's sister Helen on a plane. He tells her he is reluctant to accept the commission since he is a novelist, not used to writing about real people. She mentions that she understood a female writer was already working on the book. Later, Chance hears that the other writer was injured in a car crash. Hence the offer to himself. He is still reluctant but agrees to make a few preliminary notes. He interviews Gavin, one of Teckman's former colleagues who claims outlandishly that Martin is still alive, and that he has flown the prototype F109 aircraft to another country. The recovered debris from the apparent crash was planted. Pondering this, Chance returns home to discover his flat has been ransacked, but nothing taken. Then he receives an offer of a writing job from the enigmatic Mr Rice. The pay is unbelievably generous, but the stipulation is that he must take up the post in Berlin, tomorrow. Feeling happy Chance returns home again only to find the dead body of Gavin in the lounge! From then on it all turns a bit Cold War and we experience every convention and cliche of the spy/crime genre. Fake telephone appointments abound. Apartment doors are mysteriously always ajar and the red herrings stack up. Characters are seen only from the back, or their presence is indicated by the reaction of another. Set in the fifties, all of the cars seem to be Humbers or Wolesleys, but there isn't much traffic around. In fact, one scene on Tower Bridge would be impossible today. Several cars park easily on the bridge and Helen walks slowly across the empty carriageway to keep an assignation! There is a twist at the end. But if you have been paying attention to details, you might have worked it out 10 minutes beforehand.

Surprisingly Good

[jkstill-34386 · 8/10 · 12 November 2020]

In response to the review that felt this movie was slow: well, it didn't open with machine guns blazing, if that's what you mean.

For an older British espionage movie, this film actually moves along quite briskly.

If you like British movies, you are sure to like this. Even if you don't normally watch British film, you may well like this.

If you watched and enjoyed the original Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, you will certainly enjoy this, as the action is sizzling in comparison.