An American journalist solves the mystery of an unpleasant columnist's murder and clears his own wife, one of the many suspects.An American journalist solves the mystery of an unpleasant columnist's murder and clears his own wife, one of the many suspects.An American journalist solves the mystery of an unpleasant columnist's murder and clears his own wife, one of the many suspects.
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Storyline
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- Quotes
Tony Pendleton: Mr Gary Bax was immoral, disloyal and thoroughly selfish. I calculate there are at least a dozen other men who feel the way I do, and any one of them who's half-way decent would consider that killing Gary Bax was a public service - like clearing a blocked drain.
- Crazy creditsIn the end credits Arthur Lowe's part is misspelled "Caligraphy Expert".
Featured review
Hour of Derision
This 'B' feature murder mystery from Walton Studios would have never have set its sights on cinematic greatness but it really fails to spark into life at any stage. Jeff Morrow plays Joe Sanders, an ex-GI turned reporter, who spends almost the entire 81 minutes of the film trying to disprove the seemingly damning evidence against his wife (played by the lovely Hazel Court, wasted here). The premise is that someone knocked off the odious columnist Gary Bax (Anthony Dawson, enjoying himself as a slimy sophisticate), and of course, the entire cast have plenty of motives.
Morrow rather plods through the motions, most of the time hampered by an oversized raincoat, and a severe case of screen charisma bypass; Carl Bernard as Insp Gower offers some interest as an idiosyncratic detective; the ultimate denouement is a stagey 'crime reconstruction' scene reminiscent of Agatha Christie ( or is it Death in Paradise?) with all the suspects gathered together awaiting judgment.
It's invariably interesting to see who is picking up the smaller parts in these pics - and always great to see Lionel Jefferies, (but why the god awful American accent?) Arthur Lowe (later immortalised as Capt Mainwaring), has a small part as a pompous little man, in this case a Scientist - no one came close to doing it better.
Morrow rather plods through the motions, most of the time hampered by an oversized raincoat, and a severe case of screen charisma bypass; Carl Bernard as Insp Gower offers some interest as an idiosyncratic detective; the ultimate denouement is a stagey 'crime reconstruction' scene reminiscent of Agatha Christie ( or is it Death in Paradise?) with all the suspects gathered together awaiting judgment.
It's invariably interesting to see who is picking up the smaller parts in these pics - and always great to see Lionel Jefferies, (but why the god awful American accent?) Arthur Lowe (later immortalised as Capt Mainwaring), has a small part as a pompous little man, in this case a Scientist - no one came close to doing it better.
helpful•10
- barkiswilling
- Aug 13, 2023
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
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- Filming locations
- Piccadilly Circus, Piccadilly, London, England, UK(establishing shot of London's clubland)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 21 minutes
- Color
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