Peter Chance (Lex Barker) is attacked and left out cold by a hitchhiker while driving in the south of France. He awakes and finds that he has amnesia and cannot remember who he is nor anything about his past. He finds himself in a palatial villa with three woman, Mrs Friend (Norma Swinburne), Selina (Carol Matthews) and Marnie (Lisa Gastoni) who claim to be his mother, wife and sister. They tell him that he is the son of meat packing tycoon and poet Charles Renton-Friend who recently died and has left him his estate worth $2,000,000. In reality, the son was a drunk who ran away when his father died of a suspected heart attack. It transpires that the father left strict conditions in his will that must be met before his estate can be passed over to his son. Selina and her lover, Dr Normand, saw the opportunity to prey on Chance's amnesia and pass him off as the missing heir to trick the executors of the will and get the money for themselves. However, when the police suspect that the father was murdered - the ensuing autopsy reveals digitalis poisoning - Chance becomes their chief suspect since it is believed he is the son. With Marnie's help, Chance sets out to clear his name by finding the real Charles Renton-Friend Jnr...
A second feature murder mystery drama with an ingenious plot, which is sadly rendered a complete dud by its completely lacklustre treatment both in direction and writing. Most of the action unravels on a single the set (the villa) so all the twists and turns of the plot are revealed in words by the actors in the manner of a dreary play with no dramatic flashbacks or action. The screenplay by J McClaren Ross, while undoubtedly having some good ideas, is far fetched and some of the plot's twists do not seem at all credible. The cast do what they can to salvage it (former Tarzan star Lex Barker is confined to a wheelchair for most of the film), but that they fail is no fault of their own. Only Philip Grindrod's camera-work and Wilfred Arnold's set design emerges with any credit with the villa giving the proceedings an elegant, exotic feel and, it must be said, more than what was necessary for a run of the mill picture like this. Director Montgomery Tully, a real stalwart of featurettes, co-features and b-pics throughout the fifties and sixties, did some impressive work with such films as the William Hartnell thriller Murder In Reverse (1945) and the excellent The Third Alibi (1960), but he could do nothing to lift this from poor to even average. Don't be fooled by the film's alternative title, Female Fiends, it is nowhere near as exciting.
A second feature murder mystery drama with an ingenious plot, which is sadly rendered a complete dud by its completely lacklustre treatment both in direction and writing. Most of the action unravels on a single the set (the villa) so all the twists and turns of the plot are revealed in words by the actors in the manner of a dreary play with no dramatic flashbacks or action. The screenplay by J McClaren Ross, while undoubtedly having some good ideas, is far fetched and some of the plot's twists do not seem at all credible. The cast do what they can to salvage it (former Tarzan star Lex Barker is confined to a wheelchair for most of the film), but that they fail is no fault of their own. Only Philip Grindrod's camera-work and Wilfred Arnold's set design emerges with any credit with the villa giving the proceedings an elegant, exotic feel and, it must be said, more than what was necessary for a run of the mill picture like this. Director Montgomery Tully, a real stalwart of featurettes, co-features and b-pics throughout the fifties and sixties, did some impressive work with such films as the William Hartnell thriller Murder In Reverse (1945) and the excellent The Third Alibi (1960), but he could do nothing to lift this from poor to even average. Don't be fooled by the film's alternative title, Female Fiends, it is nowhere near as exciting.