Blackout (1954)

****SPOILERS*** It's Dane Clark as American on a binge in London Casey Morrow's genuine state of confusion, in following the material he's been handed, that makes "Blackout" worth following to the very end. Which by then were finally told why he's going through all the brain twisting horror he's been suffering for the last 90 or so excruciating minutes on film. Getting smashed at the the swanky Cloud Room Pub in London Casey finds himself approached by this beautiful blond Phyllis Brunner, Belinda Lee, who not only offers to buy the barley sober Casey a couple of drinks but her hand in marriage as well as a bundle of 500 in pound sterling that's about $1,000.00 in US currency!Later finding himself at artist Maggie Doone's, Eleanor Summerfield,loft apartment Casey finds blood on his suit and a portrait of Phyllis the woman he just met a few hours ago! Not quite knowing what to make of the situation he now finds himself in Casey is farther surprised, if he didn't have enough surprises already,to see in a newspaper headline that Phillis' dad millionaire art collector Darius Brunner had been murdered the night before! It now dawns on Casey that he's been somehow set up by Phillis to take the rap for her dad's murder! The film goes on to show that Phillys is using Casey to keep her fiancé family lawyer Lance Gordon,Andrew Osborn, from getting his hands of her father's money by marrying him instead! This to the strong objections, who thinks the world of Gordon, of her mom London party thrower Alicia, Ann Davies, who want's the marriage with Gordon to become official.****MAJOR SPOILERS***It to both Phillys and Casey's as well as the audience surprise that the reasons for Momma Brunner wanting her daughter to marry Gordon has nothing at all to do with love & marriage but to cover her own behind in her husband's murder. Who sealed his own fate by finding out the scheme she had with Gordon to fleece him of his millions through a network of phony charity funds. And by doing that she was even more then willing to commit multiple murder, including that of her daughter Phyllis, to gain her objectives or ends up hanging for committing them!

While interesting for the footage of London circa 1954, this is an absurd movie. The story line is almost impossible to follow. There's almost no dramatic tension. The situations and supposed relationships are so unrealistic that even willing suspension of disbelief doesn't work. The protagonist is gullible and hard to swallow as a supposed tough guy when he spends so much time playing the fool to beautiful women and whimpering like a small boy to his mother, etc. And to top it off, it really doesn't strike me as a film noir at all, just a confusing murder mystery. The best thing about it is Belinda Lee, previously unknown to me, a beautiful woman who was killed a few years later, at 26, in a California car accident.

The film begins with Dane Clark being offered a strange marriage proposal from a woman he just met. Not only that, she offers this drunk guy 500 pounds to do the deed! However, upon waking up the next morning, he finds he's implicated with murder and there's no trace of the lady! So, it's up to tough-guy Clark to investigate and clear his name.Most fans of Film Noir will be surprised to hear that the British (not to mention, the French) made quite a few of these in the 1950s. Oddly, the Brit Noir films were made by Hammer Studios--the same folks who made tons of Dracula, Frankenstein and Mummy films from the late 50s to the mid 1970s! And, oddly, this film is directed by the studio's foremost monster film director, Terence Fisher.Overall, while this is far from a great film, it does stack up pretty well with the average American example, though I will admit that this film does have a few too many twists and turns (particularly for the character of Phyllis Brunner).

Dane Clark plays an American drifter in London who meets a stunning blonde while on a bender at a bar. The girl tricks him into marrying him while he is in a drunken stupor and he wakes up with 500 pounds in his pocket. He then discovers he is involved in a murder and an inheritance scam.MURDER BY PROXY (a.k.a. BLACKOUT) is one of several British attempts to duplicate the American "film noir." Sometimes they even cast a genuine American "noir" star, in this case Dane Clark. Clark was in this as well as the British "noir" PAID TO KILL. However, the results were almost always that these "Brit Noir's" were never as satisfying as the American films. MURDER BY PROXY has fairly interesting plot, but things begin to get confusing, and like most "Brit Noir's", MURDER BY PROXY builds up to its climax to slowly. There is an overly long and pointless scene where Clark visits his mother and English step father and introduces himself to his new "bride." They then throw a party. This takes ups to much time and adds nothing to story.