The 'perfect crime' novel, play, film became so ubiquitous that audiences tended to judge them on how credible the 'flaw' that proved the murderer's undoing and in this case it would struggle to rate three out of ten. Director Arthur Crabtree began behind the camera where he had credits on the like of Waterloo Road; he never really made it as a director but this effort begins well enough, boldly even for the time, because we are not told where Eric Portman has been prior to his entering his (we assume) flat, discovering several business cards signed Love Always and decides to confront and kill the sender. Only then does Portman reveal to Dennis Price that he has been in America for six months thus leaving Price clear to bed Portman's wife, Greta Gynt. He cons Price into writing a letter to Gynt that we - seasoned viewers of 'perfect crime' movies - spot as a suicide note, then coolly offs Price but before he can leave Gynt (who has a key, comes in with new lover, Maxwell Reed. This gives Portman a chance to frame Price for the crime and the 'flaw' comes when Gynt tells Portman she has loved him all along and begs him to clear Price without, of course, incriminating himself. HE AGREES. Yeah, you heard; a man who has found incriminating evidence of one lover (Price) and has had it confirmed by Price himself, then sees and hears with his own eyes and ears how Gynt behaves with a second lover, BELIEVES he pathetic story. There is absolutely no chemistry between Gynt and any of the three men (though to be fair we never see her with Price), Reed is as wooden as always and Jack Warner walks through the detective role, possibly mistaking it for the one he played in It Always Rains On Sunday that same year. On a Saturday night in 1947 at the local Odean this would have been perfectly acceptable. Sixty years on it leaves something to be desired.
Review of Dear Murderer
