Film 2014 : The Blue Parrot (1953)

[gervase_fen]

This is an undemanding, cheap-as-chips British B-movie that has minimalist studio interiors (courtesy of the Nettlefield Studios, Walton-on-Thames) – it’s a murder mystery where the budget won’t stretch to showing the corpse on location (we see the victim’s hat instead).  Irish actor Dermot Walsh plays a brash New York cop on secondment to the Yard, under the avuncular tutelage of Ballard Berkley.  The titular night club is managed by John Le Mesurier, Edwin Richfield is a shifty looking waiter, and a pre-bouffant Jacqueline Hill (of course the only reason I bothered with this) is Maureen, introduced to us as a night club hostess.
She’s gamine, calm, resourceful, and gets locked up in The Blue Parrot’s extensive and unlikely network of underground cellars towards the end.  (She also gets to perform that trick with a newspaper , key and locked door which the Fourth Doctor does or does not try out himself depending on which version of The Talons of Weng Chiang you’ve seen.)  There is one delightful piece of storytelling misdirection about halfway through the film, and any movie which shows a tabulating machine sorting out card profiles for Scotland Yard will pique my interest.  

Sadly the budgetary and running time constraints squeeze the suspense out of the murder mystery (even the cops can’t quite believe how readily suspects will confess to their involvement when pushed), and Dermot Walsh lacks the charisma or conviction of, say, Michael Brandon in a similar role thirty years later.

The Blue Parrot is available on DVD and a popular video upload website.

Next Episode : Hide and Seek

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I must make time for this... Jacqueline Hill is always worth watching.

ETA: ...and I am already. No sign of the incomparable Jackie yet, but the DNA of this production can be clearly seen in the first generation of ITV crime dramas (which probably envied its budget).