This is a curious mix of drama and comedy which fails because the only funny parts are unintentionally so. I caught it on The Performance Channel one night when I was unable to sleep but after watching I was still awake trying to figure out the plot which just doesn't add up. The whole point of drugging Jake Winter (George W. Bush-lookalike Griffith Jones) and leaving him in the flat with the knife was to frame him for the murder of Mrs Dexter. But when Mr Dexter (Robert Percival) arrives home he finds only his dead wife (because Jake has come to and has climbed out of the window -- he does a lot of window hopping in the film!). So when the Police arrive they should surely suspect the husband because he found the body but they don't appear to suspect him at all, and even let him leave without questioning him. There's some terrific ham acting by Zena Marshall as vicious vamp Laura (check out her OTT silent movie-style posing when she's waiting anxiously for Jake to turn up), while Hazel Court as frosty (but soon thawed) insurance clerk Susan Honeywell has some truly appalling lines to deliver: 'Stop shouting at me and kindly take your hat off!' she yells at Griffith Jones. He doesn't fare much better: 'If you had informed the police they wouldn't know my fingerprints from Little Annie Rooney's!'. There are also some ludicrously long newspaper headlines eg: 'Husband returns from Paris to find Mrs Dexter dead in bedroom' and 'Jack Warren wanted for questioning in the murder of Mrs Dexter', the latter alongside not one but TWO photographs of the wanted man. But the (unintenionally) funniest part was when Jake Winter turns up at the mews flat of informant Simpson (Ronnie Stevens) and finds him hanging from the ceiling. We firstly see Simpson's feet dangling in mid air which is how we know he has been hung but check out when Jake cuts him down, he doesn't stand on a chair or table to do this but simply walks across to the rope and cuts it (rather too easily) at chest height suggesting that Simson was only two foot high. Hilarious! So watch this if you have an hour to spare and want a giggle but don't take it too seriously.
Review of The Scarlet Web
