An American reporter called John Madison (Alex Nicol) arrives in a small English town to investigate the apparent suicide of a down on his luck composer, David Vernon, on behalf of his only living relative in the States who isn't satisfied with the coroner's verdict. Madison finds that the close-knit community closes ranks against 'A Stranger In Town' and he has to battle his way through a conspiracy of silence to discover that Vernon's death was anything but suicide. In addition, he discovers that he was not at all a nice person and that just about anybody had a motive for wanting him dead. For instance, Vicki Leigh (Anne Paige) was madly in love with Vernon, but her guardian a successful businessman and laird of the community, Henry Wylam (Colin Tapley), disapproved. Wylam's lay-about brother William (Bruce Beeby) fancies Vicki himself and had quarrelled with Vernon about it. But, when Vicki proposed marriage to him, he rejected her because under the terms of her father's will she isn't due to come into her inheritance for another four years: "No inheritance, no marriage" were his words as he snatched her engagement ring back from her. Madison discovers that Vernon had tried to blackmail and steal from just about the entire town's populace because he had been offered the chance of a prestigious career as a concert pianist back home and needed the money for the airline ticket back to America. During the course of the investigation, Madison and Vicki fall in love, but somebody else is killed and their own lives are put into jeopardy before the murderer is finally apprehended...
This long forgotten British quickie whodunit will be of interest to film buffs because it was the directing debut of George Pollock who is best remembered for his well loved Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple comedy detective thrillers. Although this is an unremarkable and rather humourless tale about love, ambition, blackmail and murder, it does have indications of a budding directorial talent at work that was yet to fully express itself. Pollock constructs some admirable nods to American film noir in the way he has Stanley Black's glorious piano forte play over the murdered man's many female conquests' recollections of him to the reporter turned sleuth. Especially impressive are the opening scenes in which a young woman battles her way through a storm to her lover's house. She enters through the French windows as he sits at a piano playing a romantic concerto like a man possessed. She begs him to discuss the future of their relationship, but to no avail. She eyes the shotgun that she brought in with her and placed beside the piano: "Will she, or won't she shoot?", we ask ourselves in a superb moment of tension and dark passion. Veteran cinematographer Geoffrey Faithful creates a nice sense of dark foreboding in these scenes too. The fact that we never see the murdered man's face is another nice touch since it is left to our imagination throughout to make a picture of him in our minds as Alex Nicol's investigation progresses and the true nature of his character is revealed.
For the remainder of the film things are content to simply amble along at the leisurely pace of rural small town life and there is rather a lot of chat too. Faithful's camerawork pleasantly captures the picture postcard English home counties locations, but Pollock fails to link that atmosphere with the premise of sinister deeds and deception emerging from the seemingly soothing setting of a country town. Some of the most successful thrillers have exploited that premise to the full and that is why they are so endearingly popular; and the solution to the case when it is finally revealed will not exactly have you gasping in shock.
In the acting stakes, Alex Nicol, the imported American leading man is quite good as the reporter turned detective and enjoys what little action he gets to do like an encounter with an angry farmer with a fierce dog and a 12-bore shotgun which he fires over his head yelling "Get off my land! Get off my land!" Anne Paige is also noteworthy as the murdered man's heartbroken lover who colludes in Nicol's investigation and finally falls in love with him.
This long forgotten British quickie whodunit will be of interest to film buffs because it was the directing debut of George Pollock who is best remembered for his well loved Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple comedy detective thrillers. Although this is an unremarkable and rather humourless tale about love, ambition, blackmail and murder, it does have indications of a budding directorial talent at work that was yet to fully express itself. Pollock constructs some admirable nods to American film noir in the way he has Stanley Black's glorious piano forte play over the murdered man's many female conquests' recollections of him to the reporter turned sleuth. Especially impressive are the opening scenes in which a young woman battles her way through a storm to her lover's house. She enters through the French windows as he sits at a piano playing a romantic concerto like a man possessed. She begs him to discuss the future of their relationship, but to no avail. She eyes the shotgun that she brought in with her and placed beside the piano: "Will she, or won't she shoot?", we ask ourselves in a superb moment of tension and dark passion. Veteran cinematographer Geoffrey Faithful creates a nice sense of dark foreboding in these scenes too. The fact that we never see the murdered man's face is another nice touch since it is left to our imagination throughout to make a picture of him in our minds as Alex Nicol's investigation progresses and the true nature of his character is revealed.
For the remainder of the film things are content to simply amble along at the leisurely pace of rural small town life and there is rather a lot of chat too. Faithful's camerawork pleasantly captures the picture postcard English home counties locations, but Pollock fails to link that atmosphere with the premise of sinister deeds and deception emerging from the seemingly soothing setting of a country town. Some of the most successful thrillers have exploited that premise to the full and that is why they are so endearingly popular; and the solution to the case when it is finally revealed will not exactly have you gasping in shock.
In the acting stakes, Alex Nicol, the imported American leading man is quite good as the reporter turned detective and enjoys what little action he gets to do like an encounter with an angry farmer with a fierce dog and a 12-bore shotgun which he fires over his head yelling "Get off my land! Get off my land!" Anne Paige is also noteworthy as the murdered man's heartbroken lover who colludes in Nicol's investigation and finally falls in love with him.