A camera falls out of a high stone tower and lands on the back seat of Henry Kendall's car. When he gets home, it is discovered. Fortunately, he is a chemist, and soon has the pictures developed. This leads him to Ida Lupino. Her brother, John Mills, had gone out rambling with his camera a couple of days before and has not returned. Instead, the police turn up, asking about his connection to a diamond robbery. Using clues provided by the camera's photographs, Kendall and Miss Lupino find the site the pictures were taken at. They also find a murder victim. The police are finally quick to locate Mills, and coroner Felix Aylmer to push him as the murderer.
As a piece of melodrama it's an okay Quota Quickie from Julius Hagen's shop. As a mystery, it's a rambling nullity, with no advances and clues for almost an hour, then the whole thing cleared up in the last ten minutes by happenstance. Still, it's worth seeing. It's Miss Lupino's fourth movie in her first three years, and here she is top-billed over the title; Mills is further down the cast list, but it's only his second film; and the editor is David Lean in his first screen credit.
Like the B movies in America, quota quickies offered entree to talent outside the few big production companies, and a last few paychecks to talent whose names were no longer the draw they had been. Also, it offered a chance for talent to connect early in their careers. Would Mills have won an Oscar for Lean's RYAN'S DAUGHTER if they hadn't known each other for almost their entire careers?
As a piece of melodrama it's an okay Quota Quickie from Julius Hagen's shop. As a mystery, it's a rambling nullity, with no advances and clues for almost an hour, then the whole thing cleared up in the last ten minutes by happenstance. Still, it's worth seeing. It's Miss Lupino's fourth movie in her first three years, and here she is top-billed over the title; Mills is further down the cast list, but it's only his second film; and the editor is David Lean in his first screen credit.
Like the B movies in America, quota quickies offered entree to talent outside the few big production companies, and a last few paychecks to talent whose names were no longer the draw they had been. Also, it offered a chance for talent to connect early in their careers. Would Mills have won an Oscar for Lean's RYAN'S DAUGHTER if they hadn't known each other for almost their entire careers?
