Tiger in the Smoke (1956)

This is a very tricky intrigue which no one can make head or tail of to begin with, as no one can understand why anyone would try to mask as a war casualty long after the war is over, leading to constantly denser fog of a mysterious intrigue involving buskers, who actually lead the perplexing events - they are the chief charm of the film, although there are many such, amazing characters above all, Laurence Naismith as the canon, Bernard Miles as the gang leader, Kenneth Griffith as Crutches, and some fabulous old ladies, Beatrice Varley as the unfathomable Lucy Cash for one. Donald Sinden is the leading male, but although a good reliable actor, he always plays himself and was never very versatile. Muriel Pavlow is better. But the intrigue is the main thing.The lurid photography adds a special flavour to the film, - as the kidnapped victim is dragged away his despair is reflected in the photography of all the neon signs that are passed, the camera's way of following the murderer gives him some mythic magic until he finally appears, and so on. This film is full of tricks, the action is very dense and concentrated and horribly exciting until the mystery is cleared, - and then follows a cliffhanger.Much underrated, this is a film that deserves some attention.

Up till the half way mark this is an absorbing thriller.Then we are finally introduced to Johnny Havoc.Here is a man who has just broken out of prison.His hair is neatly combed,clean shaved,with a suit and tie and nice clean raincoat.A bit unlikely.The performance of Tony Wright then completely unbalances the film.We then have a scene in the church between Wright and Naismith which is both silly and illogical.Why would anyone disclose to a homicidal maniac the location of the treasure was seeking and then still still waiting to be stabbed?The climax is to say the least ill conceived and gives one the feeling of anti-climax.Donald Sinden isn't able to say too much as his mouth is taped shut for much of the film. Incidentally the year this film was made the government passed the Clean Air Act and as a result the smogs shown in this film became a thing of the past.

I saw this gripping,atmospheric little picture on its initial British release half a century ago.I was eight years old,and it's one of a handful of British pictures from that era which haunted me for years. It's very rarely shown on British T.V.,so I never got to see it again until 1985. It had held up remarkably well, and I've watched the videotaped copy I made several times since. As far as I'm aware it was never made commercially available on video, and I'm hoping it might join the growing number of rare British thrillers from the fifties made available on DVD.Director Roy Baker is probably best known these days for the horror pictures he made for Hammer and Amicus in the seventies, all of which are markedly inferior to his earlier British work. His first picture, the moody psychological thriller "The October Man",(1948) starring John Mills,is exceptionally good, and "Tiger in the Smoke" has all the same virtues; a strong cast of seasoned character actors, a pungent sense of place, highly effective suspense and a sinister aura of moral decay. Early scenes involving a seedy gang of ex-commando street musicians are masterly.Muriel Pavlow was surely the most beautiful and talented of the Rank Organisation "charm school" actresses, and Tony Wright is chillingly effective as the psychotic Johnny Havoc, whose search for hidden treasure sets the plot in motion. The critic and theorist Raymond Durgnat wrote in 1969 that this was the most dreamlike British film outside of the horror genre. It deserves wider appreciation.

Pretty good movie this.The adapters very sensibly completely omitted the vapid Albert Campion and the pallid Amanda. As usual with Margery Allingham, they are entirely redundant to the plot, and I've never found either of them even slightly credible.The ending shows the British cinema's usual utter inability to deal with landscape.