source: Town on Trial

With lust in their eyes,a group of men watch a nubile(not to say pleasingly plump) blonde playing genteel and wholesomely sexy tennis. Each of these will,in turn,be suspects when the unfortunate young woman gets murdered and Dept Supt Halloran from Scotland Yard - pause for a quick intake of breath - gets called in on the case. Messrs Derek Farr,Alec McCowen and Charles Coburn come immediately under his gaze,a Battle of Britain hero,a teenager(that alone was a crime in 1957 - believe me)and a doctor on the run from some sort of malpractice suit in Canada who has brought his niece along for company and so she can provide a little love interest for Supt Halloran. And here we have "Town on trial"'s greatest(and it has a few) weakness. No matter how much he leers,shouts and menaces,Mr John Mills is totally unconvincing as a tough Scotland Yard detective.He cajoles,he threatens,he lies,even,but he just doesn't cut it. Coppers in 1957 were big,bluff,Brylcreem tonsured men with broken noses and fists like hams who had cut their teeth on mean streets and didn't take any sh*t from anybody - indeed they were seldom offered it in a milieu where both sides of the law knew exactly where they stood. You murdered someone - you risked the rope.Halloran's suspects would all have known that. The thin veneer of respectability is stripped under the basilisk - like eye of Supt Halloran and eventually he gets his man,but not before another murder occurs. Tennis Club morals are vilified and the local teenage hangout,"The Hotspot"(it would probably be called "The 'G' Spot" nowadays) is shown as a den of mildly inappropriate behaviour("It's a rock and roll joint" says Harry Lock,amusing as a sartorially challenged detective). If you're in your seventies and want to remember when you wore a high - necked pullover and a tie to repair your motor - cycle and helmets were for Geoff Duke,you might find "Town on trial" diverting. If not it's a bit of social history that might be amusing.

TOWN ON TRIAL is a cosy British murder mystery of the 1950s which has a greater emphasis on characterisation than most. It reminded me of Agatha Christie a little. The story sees John Mills playing a dogged detective on the hunt for a killer with a penchant for strangling young women. A various well-to-do crowd are responsible, and one of half a dozen male suspects is responsible, but which? This film plays out in a slow and dated fashion, not particularly suspenseful, and only really picking up for a lively climax, but a solid cast keep you watching. I was particularly entertained to see Alec McCowen, famous for playing the detective in FRENZY, in a youthful role and there are turns from the likes of Dennis Price, Raymond Huntley and Harry Fowler.

Scotland Yard's Detective Superintendent Hollarin (John Mills) arrives in the small town of Oakley Park to investigate the murder of a young girl called Molly Stevens whom was found strangled with a stocking in the grounds of an upmarket tennis club. Virtually the entire town falls under suspicion including her former boyfriend Peter Crowley (Alec McCowen) whom she deserted in favour of the club secretary Mark Roper (Derek Farr) who also had a reason for wanting her dead since he is a married man and he also got her pregnant. If that had come out he would have lost his job. The town's physician, Dr Fenner (Charles Coburn), is being blackmailed by Roper who knows that he left his practice in Canada when a wrong diagnosis resulted in one of his patients dying and his niece, Elizabeth (Barbara Bates), agreed to give Roper a false alibi in order to protect her uncle. In addition, the prominent Dixon family's daughter Fiona (Elizabeth Seal) was very friendly with Molly: they used to frequent a dubious nightclub which is facing an illegal gambling charge, get drunk and go joy riding with boys. This angered her father, Charles (Geoffrey Keen), who is a town councillor and is earmarked to become Oakley Park's Mayor and did not like the thought of his daughter keeping that kind of company. The police gradually close in on the murderer, but not before Fiona is killed while a dance is taking place at the club... As a straightforward murder mystery it is something of a let down because the identity of the killer is fairly obvious by about half way into the film's running time. Shame on the screenwriters Ken Hughes and Robert Westerby! Nevertheless, this mysteriously obscure little film is still well worth the watch thanks to strong realistic characterisations, vigorous direction by John Guillermin in what must have been one of his first 'A' features and excellent acting all round. John Mills offers a career best performance as the tough, dogged police superintendent who never plays by the rules and quite often finding himself in hot water with his superiors and the townsfolk who do not like his sometimes unorthodox methods and, above all, resent an outsider meddling in their affairs. Derek Farr, a familiar face of British cinema at that time, also stands out playing the dishonest and thoroughly dislikeable club secretary Mark Roper. In addition to his cheating on his wife and blackmailing the local doctor, he also lies about his war service in the RAF claiming to have been a distinguished fighter pilot yet Mills discovers he was only a lowly member of the ground crew who was dishonorably discharged for theft. There is an extremely effective scene where the Superintendent confronts him about this in quite an aggressive manner and we learn that the reason for his anger towards Roper was that his wife and child were killed during an air raid. And when he attempted to volunteer for the RAF himself, he was turned down and he resents anyone who lies about their war service like he did. The sense of small town distrust of outsiders is well conveyed and Guillermin opted to shoot the film in Weybridge, Surrey, England, which serves the plot very well. Basil Emmott, a lighting cameraman of prolific output whose work helped lift numerous 'B' pictures above the average, heightens the strong sense of place and the mysteriousness with his rich black and white camera-work. The suspense reaches fever pitch at the climax where Mills climbs up the steeple of a church to confront his killer who is threatening to commit suicide from throwing himself off the roof. The murder scenes are also very well done and are sufficient to send a chill down the spine even though the composer, Tristram Carey, opted to play a harpsichord over them predating the Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple films by a few years.

I watched this on television many a moon ago as a young teenager and I'm now over 60. I really liked this movie and would love to see it again. Since I like British movies of the '40s-early '60s I probably wouldn't be too disappointed seeing it again. I especially like thrillers, suspense, and mysteries. I thought the way they fingerprinted every male in town trying to find the killer was great (I read somewhere that that was used in a real case). Also the notes found with Ezekiel 23:5 "And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours . . ." because of the first victim's reputation and the author's opinion of women in general had me running to a Bible and I actually memorized it. The young man climbing the church tower/belfry (or some high precipice) when he felt cornered really had me hold my breath. This is all from memory, mind you. It hasn't even been shown on television here in the States in years. I lived in the Los Angeles area when I did see it. I really really wish it would be made available in a Region 1 DVD though at this point I'd probably take any format and any region I could get!

Copyright 1956 by Marksman Films Ltd. Released through Columbia Pictures Corp. No New York opening. U.S. release: August 1957. U.K. release: 18 February 1957. Australian release: 26 September 1957. 8,654 feet. 96 minutes. NOTES: "Introducing" Elizabeth Seal, although she had in fact previously appeared in Radio Cab Murder (1954). Producer: Maxwell Setton. Copyright 1956 by Marksman Films Ltd. Released through Columbia Pictures Corp. No New York opening. U.S. release: August 1957. U.K. release: 18 February 1957. Australian release: 26 September 1957. 8,654 feet. 96 minutes. COMMENT: You'd think a movie with a cast like this would more than fill the average suburban cinema of a Friday night. Mills, Coburn, Farr were all super-popular players. Farr had even recently played a most successful season on the stage, opposite his actress wife, Muriel Pavlow. But when I saw the movie at my neighborhood Odeon, I was one of only three paying patrons in the theatre! It wasn't only that television had already started to take its big bite out of cinema attendances, but that audiences simply didn't take to Mills as either a policeman or a murder suspect. To most picturegoers, Mills was a serviceman - whether in the army, navy or air force didn't matter, so long as he was in uniform. Out of uniform, he was barely tolerated as a businessman or farmer, completely ignored as either a light romantic figure or comedy cut-up or a disturbed "little man" with serious emotional problems. Thus general audiences chose to ignore all of Mills' best performances. Instead he was "ideally" cast as the epitome of breezy officer types, all-right chaps, stiff upper-lip and all that. A grippingly fast-paced, mystery thriller, Town on Trial is an original screenplay by Ken Hughes and Robert Westerby, written in the classic tradition of credibly-hewn characters, realistic incident and a bobby-dazzler of an action climax. There are only four suspects, yet the writers keep us in fine suspense right up to the climactic revelation. And although the identity of the killer is cleverly concealed, the script plays fair . John Guillermin has directed this fine script with verve, style and imagination. No doubt all the subjective camerawork is detailed in the script, but it's fascinatingly presented all the same. A large budget with lots of extras and location settings also helps. The performances are all major league. From the tantalising glimpse of Magda Miller, through the high-spirited sexiness of Elizabeth Seal, to the nastily vicious (?) or helpfully sincere (?) Charles Coburn who brings all his magnificent charisma to bear on a difficult role which he brings off so superbly. Production credits are likewise absolutely first-rate. Photography, music, film editing and art direction are especially commendable.

The film shows the good and the bad of 50s crime genre movies made in the UK. The direction by John Guillermin (who went on to do some good work) is thoughtful and interesting - different angles and camera movement- but the script has too many holes. You cannot move from whodunnit to deep psychological explanation of the mind of the murderer in about three seconds flat! The storyline of the veneer of a fifties town, where all the so called important people are really hiding secrets, being ripped off by the investigation of a murder of a free and easy, amply bosomed, lay is OK, but it needed a lot more depth and exploration than it is given here. The acting is fine apart from the ridiculous miscasting of John Mills as a tenacious tough detective not afraid to ruffle the dignitas of the leading citizens and capable of seducing the female lead!!!! It should have been Stanley Baker who would have brought more brooding menace and fear to those covering up their indiscretions! And the ending is trite, laughable, and terribly rushed, despite its dramatic location - up a church spire!!!!!! The fifties but not as most remember it!

When "Town on Trial" begins, you hear the voice of the murderer before he commits the crime! You see him looking at pretty Molly at the country club...and you hear him saying how she has it coming because she's one of THOSE sort of girls! Well, Molly certainly was pretty and liked to show off her figure...and the sicko thought this meant he was entitled to kill her!! Police Superintendent Halloran (John Mills) is assigned to the case. And, unfortunately, it's not a quick and easy case to solve...and some of it is because the rich folks he questions sometimes have a strong sense of entitlement. In fact, the more he investigates, the more these folks put pressure on his superiors to take him off the case! What's to come of this? This is a very good film. Sure, the story is good but the reason I liked it was the very fine acting of Mills. He was a heck of a good actor and made even average material well above average. Well worth your time.

The main reason to watch this movie now, for me - and I guess most - is for John Mills, as the firm but fair Scotland Yard Inspector Detective, who has to solve a couple of murders of young women in a sleepy Home Counties town in England. It's all about the rather sermonising 1950's "respectable" folk who wag their fingers at a local beauty - a Marilyn Monroe (sort of) lookalike who carries on with married men and flaunts her curvy figure at the local snobbish Sports Club, the elitism of which extends beyond their usual, especially as the membership secretary is a fan of hers.... One night, she is strangled and of course, a whole array of the obvious candidates spring up, some red herrings and some real. Charles Coburn as a disgraced GP and Derek Farr who has more business fingers in more pies than are reasonable are two of the more recognisable stars that come under the Inspector's radar. The film is well enough made, the story complex enough to satisfy the average amateur sleuth and John Mills is sturdy, even if his 'romance' with one of the deceased young friends is both awkward and frankly, ridiculous. There's also a pretty meaty and suspenseful ending, that Hitchcock himself might have come up with.

The calm of prosperous Oakley Park is shattered when a local woman is found murdered. A Scotland Yard detective is called in to solve the case. He unmasks the murderer but not before another woman is killed. This picture contains some of the stock characters we see in many thrillers; the woman killed just because she is sexually attractive, the detective who gets results by breaking the rules and a community of outwardly respectable people who all have their dirty little secrets. These elements could have resulted in a predictable formulaic thriller but "Town on Trial" is lifted onto a higher class by the writing, direction and acting. The acting is consistently good from the bit part players up to the stars. The two outstanding performances are given by Alec McCowen as a suspect and John Mills as the detective. I would recommend this film to any viewer.