I think the criticisms of this film are a bit strong. We have to remember that 45 years have elapsed since it was made and our tastes have become more sophisticated with the diet of increasingly slick and clever movies and TV series that we now enjoy. I think Hendry plays the detective role well - sort of laid back and not falling into the cliché characterisations of the time. He is a Jaguar driving opera loving detective (now which more modern detective series does that remind you of?). I had not seen this film before watching it the other day on Movies4Men (UK) and enjoyed it for what it was - a fairly entertaining movie from the early 60's.
18 Reviews
"My wife likes custard on bread"
hwg1957-102-2657049 November 2019
Warning: Spoilers
The actor Laurence Payne wrote three novels about Inspector Birkett and this film is based on the 'The Nose On My Face'. Insp. Birkett and DC Saunders investigate the murder of a model and not only find the killer but also uncover a drug smuggling ring. It starts directly at the scene of the crime and then the story winds this way and that until the conclusion, the detectives encountering several interesting characters on the road to the solution, a journey that had me interested from start to finish. It is an entertaining mystery.
The cast are just right for their roles and all give compelling performances. The plot might not be that original but the strength of the performances keeps one watching, particularly James Villiers as David Dane, Rosalie Crutchley as Maude Klein, Jeremy Brett as Jordan Baker and Margaret Johnston as Mrs Gray. Not to mention Peter Arne, Natasha Parry, Kieron Moore, Zena Walker and Duncan Macrae. A fine bunch of actors.
Ian Hendry as Inspector Birkett and Ronald Fraser as Sergeant Saunders are excellent as they go about their investigation. They make a great team and it is a shame that no more Birkett and Saunders films with these two were ever made.
The cast are just right for their roles and all give compelling performances. The plot might not be that original but the strength of the performances keeps one watching, particularly James Villiers as David Dane, Rosalie Crutchley as Maude Klein, Jeremy Brett as Jordan Baker and Margaret Johnston as Mrs Gray. Not to mention Peter Arne, Natasha Parry, Kieron Moore, Zena Walker and Duncan Macrae. A fine bunch of actors.
Ian Hendry as Inspector Birkett and Ronald Fraser as Sergeant Saunders are excellent as they go about their investigation. They make a great team and it is a shame that no more Birkett and Saunders films with these two were ever made.
An entertaining whodunit! Make that 7.5!
JohnHowardReid9 October 2017
Warning: Spoilers
A Viewfinder Films Production for British Lion/Bryanston Films. Released in the U.S.A. by Cinema V Distributing, Inc. New York opening simultaneously at the Embassy and the Murray Hill: 24 November 1964. Not copyrighted in the U.S.A. U.K. release through Bryanston/British Lion: 1 December 1963. Location scenes filmed in London. 8,409 feet. 93 minutes. Cut to 90 minutes in the U.S.A. U.S. release title: The MODEL MURDER CASE.
SYNOPSIS: Inspector Birkett and Sergeant Saunders are called in to investigate the murder of a model, in whose ransacked apartment the only clues they find consist of a cheap ballpoint pen and a gun which has been hidden in the toilet cistern. They interview her neighbor, television actor David Dane; her mother, Mrs Gray; her friend, Perlita; Perlita's husband, Hammond, and his brother Jordon; all without making much evident progress.
The investigation later goes further afield, and they interview Rodney Herter, manager of a select gambling club; former opera star, Madame Lavalle; and William Lamotte, a prominent shipping magnate.
COMMENT: Very well directed (I particularly like the scene in the deserted prima donna's chamber, with Elizabeth Vaughan's enchanting voice on the sound track), beautifully photographed, but a script that, ingenious and witty though it may be, evidently lends itself to some curiously stiff and wooden performances. One could almost cite the entire cast with the exception of Fraser and Asher.
Still, it's an entertaining film, far above the level of the usual Scotland Yard whodunit. (Available on a very good Odeon DVD).
SYNOPSIS: Inspector Birkett and Sergeant Saunders are called in to investigate the murder of a model, in whose ransacked apartment the only clues they find consist of a cheap ballpoint pen and a gun which has been hidden in the toilet cistern. They interview her neighbor, television actor David Dane; her mother, Mrs Gray; her friend, Perlita; Perlita's husband, Hammond, and his brother Jordon; all without making much evident progress.
The investigation later goes further afield, and they interview Rodney Herter, manager of a select gambling club; former opera star, Madame Lavalle; and William Lamotte, a prominent shipping magnate.
COMMENT: Very well directed (I particularly like the scene in the deserted prima donna's chamber, with Elizabeth Vaughan's enchanting voice on the sound track), beautifully photographed, but a script that, ingenious and witty though it may be, evidently lends itself to some curiously stiff and wooden performances. One could almost cite the entire cast with the exception of Fraser and Asher.
Still, it's an entertaining film, far above the level of the usual Scotland Yard whodunit. (Available on a very good Odeon DVD).
Routine investigation yarn
searchanddestroy-110 August 2022
There were thousands of this kind of topics, especially in the British film industry, and this one remains in the good ones, though there is nothing exceptional. You have to like this atmosphere, I don't, and Ian Hendry is as good as ever in the detective, inspector, role a police officer who has the habit to remove his shoes at home and in his office, behind his desk. The little charm of this kind of production. I would have enjoyed it if there had not been a mystery scheme. It is not 1.66 frame but 2.35. That's the way I saw it on my TV set. The last minute worth the whole suspense. Even less than last minute.
Neither Poirot,nor Marple.
dbdumonteil13 December 2001
And no Christie either.Hence a rather unexciting detective story which blends Agatha's whodunit with film noir elements.A bevy of characters is overkill in lieu of a well-constructed mystery.The performances are a bit listless and the director tries a hand at humor with one of his inspectors'cold.Attshoo!
The most interesting in this movie is the settings,chiefly in the second half.One of them seems to be a gay bar,but the word (it's 1963)is not uttered;Some scenes are filmed on location on the Thames banks; a chase in a graveyard is rather good.
Nevertheless,it will satisfy neither Christie's countless following (the plot is too poor) nor the film noir buffs (too watered-down and not enough ambiguity).Stick with Hercule,Jane,and co.
The most interesting in this movie is the settings,chiefly in the second half.One of them seems to be a gay bar,but the word (it's 1963)is not uttered;Some scenes are filmed on location on the Thames banks; a chase in a graveyard is rather good.
Nevertheless,it will satisfy neither Christie's countless following (the plot is too poor) nor the film noir buffs (too watered-down and not enough ambiguity).Stick with Hercule,Jane,and co.
What On Earth Is The Model's Real Name?????
TheFearmakers6 August 2021
Also given the pedestrian title THE MODEL MURDER CASE, this British Neo Noir has a perfectly cast Ian Hendry with Ronald Fraser as cop partners (Inspector and Sergeant) with such terrific chemistry it's a shame there weren't more films, or perhaps a television series where GIRL IN THE HEADLINES would be a merely passable episode albeit filled with fantastic looking sets showcasing pallid wealth... in a mystery thriller that needed not only more thrills but far more action...
A shame too that the titular model, shown all through the opening credits and even the first several minutes (seated dead in someone else's living room), isn't credited anywhere...
Her character is quite something, making this a kind of LAURA where the corpse has a life all its own, albeit not through any flashbacks...
The suspects/her friends though are very similar: a group of big money lowlifes including a flamboyant TV star (James Villiers); a shady nightclub owner (Kieron Moore); a handsome sailor who could be trafficking drugs (Jeremy Brett); the girl's sullen mother (Margaret Johnston); and an even more sullen married couple...
Meanwhile Ian Hendry, who'd wind down his career playing cold-blooded villains, looks square-jawed classy here, befitting the stalwart lead whether in plush interior investigations with his quirky, even snoopier partner, or at home with pretty teenage daughter Jane Asher, whose mom (his wife) is more of a cool older sister...
Again, these primary leads all seem part of something else... bigger, more expanded... and it's too bad they're stuck in one single just-good-enough time-filling thriller...
Everyone... even the dead girl... deserved better: Like in HER case, an actual name!
A shame too that the titular model, shown all through the opening credits and even the first several minutes (seated dead in someone else's living room), isn't credited anywhere...
Her character is quite something, making this a kind of LAURA where the corpse has a life all its own, albeit not through any flashbacks...
The suspects/her friends though are very similar: a group of big money lowlifes including a flamboyant TV star (James Villiers); a shady nightclub owner (Kieron Moore); a handsome sailor who could be trafficking drugs (Jeremy Brett); the girl's sullen mother (Margaret Johnston); and an even more sullen married couple...
Meanwhile Ian Hendry, who'd wind down his career playing cold-blooded villains, looks square-jawed classy here, befitting the stalwart lead whether in plush interior investigations with his quirky, even snoopier partner, or at home with pretty teenage daughter Jane Asher, whose mom (his wife) is more of a cool older sister...
Again, these primary leads all seem part of something else... bigger, more expanded... and it's too bad they're stuck in one single just-good-enough time-filling thriller...
Everyone... even the dead girl... deserved better: Like in HER case, an actual name!
Worth it for Jeremy Brett.
simon-89415 December 2020
Standard Crime Thriller
crumpytv29 August 2022
To be honest it would have been pretty awful if it hadn't been for Ian Hendry and Ronald Frasier as the detective and sergeant. A formula we got used to during the 1990s, but it wasn't new. No Hiding Place had the same sort of format.
A young Jane Asher was completely OTT as the daughter and Jeremy Brett showed glimpses of better things to come.
The crime was all a bit implausible and I didn't really know who was doing what and why at the end.
What was the business with the oars? We were never shown the reason why they were important.
It is based on the 1961 novel The Nose on my Face by actor Laurence Payne.
'Britmovie' called the film a "cleverly plotted thriller directed by ex-Ealing editor/producer Michael Truman... Hendry's committed performance and Fraser's underplayed support dominate the film as the two policemen on the case.
A young Jane Asher was completely OTT as the daughter and Jeremy Brett showed glimpses of better things to come.
The crime was all a bit implausible and I didn't really know who was doing what and why at the end.
What was the business with the oars? We were never shown the reason why they were important.
It is based on the 1961 novel The Nose on my Face by actor Laurence Payne.
'Britmovie' called the film a "cleverly plotted thriller directed by ex-Ealing editor/producer Michael Truman... Hendry's committed performance and Fraser's underplayed support dominate the film as the two policemen on the case.
Not A Model Of The Form
boblipton16 November 2019
Inspector Ian Hendry and his sergeant, Ronald Fraser, are at the scene of a murder.A girl who makes her living as a model is dead in her apartment. Their investigation starts with her upstairs neighbor, a famous television actor, and continues slowly, from a painter with a rough marriage, to a gambling club, and eventually to the shady world of the drug trade.
It's a bit slow and ponderous over the course of its 90 minutes, and eventually the solution is pulled out at the last minute, quite unfairly for the mystery form. The major point of the movie is the contrast between Hendry's utterly normal home life and the dark and dismal world into which his investigations take him, leading eventually to a confrontation in a graveyard.
It's certainly well acted, with the reliable performer Fraser showing more flashes of wit than his rough appearance usually permitted him during his career. It's a worthwhile movie, until it fell to pieces for me at the very end.
It's a bit slow and ponderous over the course of its 90 minutes, and eventually the solution is pulled out at the last minute, quite unfairly for the mystery form. The major point of the movie is the contrast between Hendry's utterly normal home life and the dark and dismal world into which his investigations take him, leading eventually to a confrontation in a graveyard.
It's certainly well acted, with the reliable performer Fraser showing more flashes of wit than his rough appearance usually permitted him during his career. It's a worthwhile movie, until it fell to pieces for me at the very end.
I Wonder If Colin Dexter Saw This Movie Before Creating Inspector Morse!!!
kidboots23 May 2013
Warning: Spoilers
I have seen "Sapphire", "Violent Playground" and "Hell Drivers" but was very surprised to find that Britain had it's own niche of gritty, noirish crime thrillers. They don't have the stylized dark alleys, beautiful dames that spell "trouble" and laid back drawling gumshoes but they do have realism in spades and in the 1960s were still making them. Ian Hendry was a terrifically versatile actor who first came to notice in the TV series "The Avengers" - I have seen him as a sleazy beauty contest promoter in "The Beauty Jungle", a sadistic sergeant in "The Hill" and only the other week, twin brothers (one criminally insane of course) in a Thriller episode "A Killer With Two Faces". I was also surprised to read the comments which had Hendry's Inspector Birkett described as dull and unexciting - I mean he drives a Jaguar and loves opera, maybe Colin Dexter saw this movie before he created Inspector Morse!!
He has been called in to investigate the murder of a model, the only clues being a ball point pen found in a nearby bush and a gun in a cistern. They meet her upstairs neighbour, a posturing TV actor David Dane (James Villiers) and his annoying Pekinese who, of course, is putty in Birkett's hands. Dain, however, acts dumb when asked about the private life of Ursula Grey. Their search leads them to an old school friend, Perlita Barker (Natasha Parry from popular 1970s show "Father, Dear Father") whose sinister husband paints a picture of a promiscuous girl who had a baby at 16.
For all the convoluted plot it is pretty leisurely and could have had a tighter reins put on the editing. Also featured is Blakeleys, a very swanky up market club that Virginia frequented - "there will be a few worried gentlemen there". To his wife's question of whether she was a call girl, Birkett replies "I think she did all the calling". A gorgeous Jeremy Brett plays Jordan Barker, who claims to be Ursula's fiancée, implicates Dain in a black mail plot involving Ursula and her "medicine" and also Madame La Valle, a once renowned opera singer who lost her voice and now relies on "medicine" (cocaine) to get her through the lonely nights. Her assistant (Rosalie Crutchley) grants Birkett his wish of being able to listen to the great artist sing. They are soon back to square one when Daine is found dead at a jazz club, also a dubious pick up place for homosexuals.
After a good fifteen minutes following Jordan around the port, he is an oyster fisherman and the police have a tip off the cocaine may be being smuggled via hollow oars - I know, I know - what will script writers come up with next!! the mystery is solved literally within the last 60 seconds when the police remember the one person who doesn't have any reason to wish Ursula well!!
As well as everyone mentioned, Kieran Moore is featured as well as lovely Jane Asher as Birkett's teenage daughter, Lindy, who goes into mourning on the death of her idol, David Dain with a "you don't understand Dad" when Birkett tries to explain why he is not exactly heart broken at Dain's death!!
Highly Recommended.
He has been called in to investigate the murder of a model, the only clues being a ball point pen found in a nearby bush and a gun in a cistern. They meet her upstairs neighbour, a posturing TV actor David Dane (James Villiers) and his annoying Pekinese who, of course, is putty in Birkett's hands. Dain, however, acts dumb when asked about the private life of Ursula Grey. Their search leads them to an old school friend, Perlita Barker (Natasha Parry from popular 1970s show "Father, Dear Father") whose sinister husband paints a picture of a promiscuous girl who had a baby at 16.
For all the convoluted plot it is pretty leisurely and could have had a tighter reins put on the editing. Also featured is Blakeleys, a very swanky up market club that Virginia frequented - "there will be a few worried gentlemen there". To his wife's question of whether she was a call girl, Birkett replies "I think she did all the calling". A gorgeous Jeremy Brett plays Jordan Barker, who claims to be Ursula's fiancée, implicates Dain in a black mail plot involving Ursula and her "medicine" and also Madame La Valle, a once renowned opera singer who lost her voice and now relies on "medicine" (cocaine) to get her through the lonely nights. Her assistant (Rosalie Crutchley) grants Birkett his wish of being able to listen to the great artist sing. They are soon back to square one when Daine is found dead at a jazz club, also a dubious pick up place for homosexuals.
After a good fifteen minutes following Jordan around the port, he is an oyster fisherman and the police have a tip off the cocaine may be being smuggled via hollow oars - I know, I know - what will script writers come up with next!! the mystery is solved literally within the last 60 seconds when the police remember the one person who doesn't have any reason to wish Ursula well!!
As well as everyone mentioned, Kieran Moore is featured as well as lovely Jane Asher as Birkett's teenage daughter, Lindy, who goes into mourning on the death of her idol, David Dain with a "you don't understand Dad" when Birkett tries to explain why he is not exactly heart broken at Dain's death!!
Highly Recommended.
Plodding Around
malcolmgsw3 April 2008
This film has recently surfaced on Movies4Men.It is the sort of police drama that would be the support to some big American film at the Odeon or ABC.Ian hendry who stars in this ,should really have become a big star,but his career spiraled downward in the seventies mainly due to his drinking which eventually killed him at a very early age.I in fact saw him in a sorry state in a pub in Golders Green Road.The film is really a bit of a mess.There are too many suspects with lots of red herrings.the murderer is rather unlikely with no clues given as to the killers identity.The detectives always just get home when the phone rings and they have to go out again.You just wonder at the great overtime bills they must be clocking up.They literally plod around crime scenes picking up items willy nilly in a way that could easily wipe any prints.Clearly no SOCO at that time.Ronald Fraser plays the slightly comic detective.However i have to say that all this film induced in me was sleep.
Boring Drama!
RodrigAndrisan8 December 2019
Another fine English actor Ian Hendry! His personal qualities make the film go a little bit faster. Hendry has played in some absolutely remarkable films - this is not one of them - such as: Repulsion (1965) by Roman Polanski, The Hill (1965) by Sidney Lumet, The Passenger (1975) by Michelangelo Antonioni. The actors are OK in this one but the whole plot is confusing and monotonous and the rhythm of the film is that of a snail.
Superb british noir
marksulli-9598516 December 2020
Unfortunately, missed the first half hour due to misguided decision to see first half of Watford v Brentford. (It won't happen again !)
Wonderful and riveting film from the golden age of British noir - this must have been one of the first films Hendry did post Avengers. Portrayal of style and seediness very reminiscent of Raymond Chandler. Beautifully understated acting from Hendry - I wonder if Steve McQueen or Peter Yates saw this ?
Would give extra star but for slightly annoying Jane Asher as needy middle class daughter !
Last place you'd look for drugs
Goingbegging3 December 2021
We can't reveal how the coke was being smuggled - rather like The Purloined Letter, it's so much in your face, it's the last place you'd think of searching - but that's about the only creative touch here.
It starts with a glamorous blonde model in a chair, suddenly seen to be dead, as her head tips sideways. The film's original title, The Model Girl Murder Case, was fortunately changed to Girl in the Headlines, curiously haunting, pointing-up the ephemerality of a bar-girl's life and death.
The banal, plodding story is unworthy of the well-drawn characters that drive it, let alone the star-studded cast. It's little more than a black-&-white snapshot of 1963, with Ian Hendry very much the face of that revolutionary year, every smile tingling with rebel glee. But the rest are sadly wasted. Ronald Fraser, as the Doctor Watson figure, a seriously dated role, reduced to weak comedy that depends on repeated sneezing fits. Jeremy Brett and James Villiers discreetly suggesting a gay sub-plot based around a dubious nightclub. Marie Burke as an opera singer (apparently dubbed, though she was a professional herself), attended by the gloomy Rosalie Crutchley whom we remember from No Love for Johnnie as Peter Finch's wife berating him for abandoning the Marxist gospel in favour of the London fleshpots. It all makes for a colourful tapestry, but not an engaging narrative.
Odd glimpse of a dilapidated pleasure-boat called the Marchioness, flashing-up disturbing memories of a later craft of that name, almost colliding with a small boat with the mis-spelt name Guiseppe (should be Giuseppe).
It starts with a glamorous blonde model in a chair, suddenly seen to be dead, as her head tips sideways. The film's original title, The Model Girl Murder Case, was fortunately changed to Girl in the Headlines, curiously haunting, pointing-up the ephemerality of a bar-girl's life and death.
The banal, plodding story is unworthy of the well-drawn characters that drive it, let alone the star-studded cast. It's little more than a black-&-white snapshot of 1963, with Ian Hendry very much the face of that revolutionary year, every smile tingling with rebel glee. But the rest are sadly wasted. Ronald Fraser, as the Doctor Watson figure, a seriously dated role, reduced to weak comedy that depends on repeated sneezing fits. Jeremy Brett and James Villiers discreetly suggesting a gay sub-plot based around a dubious nightclub. Marie Burke as an opera singer (apparently dubbed, though she was a professional herself), attended by the gloomy Rosalie Crutchley whom we remember from No Love for Johnnie as Peter Finch's wife berating him for abandoning the Marxist gospel in favour of the London fleshpots. It all makes for a colourful tapestry, but not an engaging narrative.
Odd glimpse of a dilapidated pleasure-boat called the Marchioness, flashing-up disturbing memories of a later craft of that name, almost colliding with a small boat with the mis-spelt name Guiseppe (should be Giuseppe).
Feels old, feels tired
Leofwine_draca17 December 2020
Warning: Spoilers
A somewhat sluggish murder mystery story of the era, GIRL IN THE HEADLINES feels like it was made a decade previously and the whole milieu is very old-fashioned in scope. It doesn't help that Ian Hendry plays a character who sort of shuffles around lifelessly while Ronald Fraser, as his comic sidekick, bags all of the best scenes and lines and is much more entertaining as a result. The film begins with a murder and then follows our leads as they investigate various persons linked with the victim, including Jeremy Brett and James Villiers, but it only starts picking up right at the end.
Enjoyable 60s noir
lucyrf6 January 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Police realism and location shooting pre-Bergerac. Ian Hendry is the laid-back detective with the annoyingly perky wife. In a scene that initially looks like a fashion shoot, a part-time model is found shot. The detectives shuffle around her flat, which is decorated in busy patterned wallpaper, with frilly nylon underwear spilling out of drawers. They move upstairs, where lives a beautiful TV star (male), his Pekinese, his fur staircarpet and his ruched net curtains, played by James Villiers. Homosexuality was not legalised for a few more years, and attitudes were changing, but the word still couldn't be spoken. The poor man is eventually found (after a lot of plot twists) stabbed in a gay club. We get there via a washed-up opera singer's shrine to herself (shown off by devoted Rosalie Crutchley) and a dubious baroque casino. Any London film of this period has to end up at the river - the fog, the boats, the gritty docksides were a gift to film-makers. Underneath it all is a drug-dealing plot with clues hidden inside identical biros. A gem.
A Snapshot of a New Era
jromanbaker4 August 2022
I imagine this film was made towards the end of 1962, as it was released in June 1963. Directed by the underused and good director Michael Truman ( who made ' Touch and Go' a highly rated comedy but underrated today ) it shows in stark black and white a new era in our troubled social lives. This in my opinion happens every 60 years or so, and we are entering a new one since 2020. ' Girl in the Headlines ' is about the search for the killer of a party ' girl ' and model, and like an unwanted ghost she hovers over the whole film and no one really grieves for her. London and its mainly focused trendy new fashions and lifestyles are just beginning, and this springtime of a new era shows us a gallery of characters each with their secrets and their mainly empty lives. Promiscuity in sexuality, a prurient media and drug filled lives revolve around all of them. Jeremy Brett ( a troubled man himself ) portrays a young man of the times, partly looking backwards, partly towards the future, and his handsome face seems to dread it. Margaret Johnston ( one of the UK's finest actors who was excellent in Truman's ' Touch and Go ' ) plays the dead woman's mother; an enigmatic and lonely figure looking back to a life that has nothing to do with the pop ephemera around her. Natasha Parry ( one of our best actors about to leave the UK for arguably better roles with Peter Brook, again arguably the UK's best director lost to the UK for Paris. ) plays the wife of an artist who abuses her emotionally, and there are hints of bisexuality. Ian Hendry and Ronald Fraser play the detectives and for me both of them paled in acting abilities compared to the three mentioned above. They represent the dying era and its own boredoms but that does not excuse below par acting which sadly dominated the film by them, especially in the last half of the film. I must single out two scenes; one in a ' dead ' house where we see relics of the past of a former Opera singer, and this beautifully filmed sequence is played out in silence to a recoding of Bellini's ' Casta Diva ' from his opera ' Norma. ' This alone deserves the full eight I am giving this film, and shows a magical touch that Michael Truman showed in his direction of ' Touch and Go. ) The second scene is set in a gay club after the murder of a famous actor, and the way the ' suspects ' are led away by the police shows just how these still legally ' criminals ' are abjectly treated. The look on Ian Hendry's face says it all. The club itself appeared to be the ' Gigolo ' in Chelsea below a fashionable restaurant above it and joined to it called ' the Casserole ' and frequented by a lot of the famous people of the time. A good film, patchy in parts, but for all those interested in an era that has just slipped by us well worth watching.
You will never guess who the murderer is here...
clanciai2 December 2021
There are too many murders and too many suspects, and everyone is likely to be a murderer of their various victims, but only one is never even suspected. Ian Hendry leads the investigation with poor results and practically no clues, since the first girl murdered apparently had no family, no contacts (except too many boys) and leaving no trace, while she does make a beautiful corpse - you can gloat on her in the beginning, but that is all. James Villiers makes an impression but doesn't last for very long either. Among the other actors are the young Jeremy Brett, who does make an impression being used by the criminals running the business of fishy goings-on in secret clubs. But it is an awfully slow thriller, the two leading investigators seem rather bored from the beginning, and you'll expect them to fall asleep at any moment, which you wonder at they don't. There are a few murders to jolt them up, some skirmishes at a churchyard, but no drama, nothing intelligent, no serious business, just a very conventional criminal investigation of murders. When the murderer finally turns up with a spontaneous admission, the whole thing seems actually rather far-fetched. No Maigret, no Morse, but rather some backyard digging in sordid left-overs of some underground activities.
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