Wanted for Murder (1946)

Best movie ever!

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The most interesting aspect of this lacklustre thriller are the views that it gives us of post war austerity London.This is a thriller without a thrill.For some bizarre reason we know the killer from the beginning.The reason for his murderous impulses arise from the fact that his grandfather was the public hangman in Victorian Times.To add to the character he is also a hummus boy.The actors do their best with the material but some of them are miscast.In particular Dulcie Grey and Derick Farr.I cannot remember a bus conductor talking as if he was fresh from a Mayfair nightclub.I can only assume that this film has such a high,overrated mark,due to the prescience of Portman and writing of Pressburger.

After years of wartime austerity, picture going resumed in Britain in a big way with the spectacular success of "The Wicked Lady", a Technicolour costume extravaganza. But strangely another genre to find favour was the psychological crime film and no actor could create quiet menace, the type that simmers under a surface of normality quite like Eric Portman. His smooth speech usually meant he was often able to fool everyone and get away with murder - until the last reel. In this film he plays Victor James Colebrook, a man who seems to hold everything under control but is still capable of violent outbursts. Only his mother seems worried about his moods - his father had been a notorious hangman whose mind snapped and ever afterwards was only happy when he was carrying out his grisly occupation. Victor has inherited the madness and as the film opens he is already stalking his latest victim. He is engaged to a sweet girl, Anne (Dulcie Grey) who works in a music store but the first scenes show her meeting someone else - a love struck bus driver, Jack (Derek Farr) and she has fallen for him as well.The film explored many avenues, it was moodily atmospheric with director Laurence Huntingdon taking full advantage of Eric Portman's deep moods and mask like face. Has some very Hitchcockian moments, I wondered if Hitchcock had seen this movie when he planned "Strangers on a Train" and the eerie carnival and island sequences of that movie? In one scene Victor is in a mist enshrouded park with a naïve Irish girl but just after he kills her an American serviceman and his girl come across them. With the deepening fog he is able to shield his identity while offering the asked for matches. Then there was the orderly view of police procedure - Stanley Holloway in a rare straight role as the constable who makes the connection between Colebrook and his notorious father!!With a climax resembling "The Blue Lamp" - the police pinpoint Colebrook and his next victim in Hyde Park and begin a no-nonsense public exodus of the grounds. Dulcie Grey who had scored a critical success in her last film "They Were Sisters" was amazed to find herself dropped after the studio felt her portrayal was too realistic!! Soon after Eric Portman requested her to co-star with him in "Wanted for Murder" and, according to Miss Grey, he was a "darling"!!Highly Recommended.

Don't be put off by the generic title. This is a film of subtlety and grace.Eric Portman is perfect as the troubled protagonist. Dulcie Gray enchants as the vulnerable yet strong-willed heroine. And the supporting cast is uniformly excellent.This is a variation on the Jack the Ripper theme. Someone is strangling young women, sending notes to Scotland Yard in advance. Ronald Culver is absolutely right as the chief inspector on the case.The psychology may be painted with slightly broad strokes. But the acting elevate that: The pain felt by all concerned is palpable. We do not admire the killer but we have understanding of the person's behavior. The victims and would-be victims are touching. And the attempts by secondary characters to help are persuasive and upsetting to us.

It's all very nicely done. I had barely, if ever, heard of any of the leads in this movie before I saw it. I was expecting a sloppy film noir set in London, but it was a pleasant surprise when the dialogue and the players were as good as they are. The story is tight, mostly, and there is real tension and unexpected humor. Overall, it was very effective.I was particularly impressed with Eric Portman as Colebrooke. There was not much of a tradition playing sociopaths at this point in the movies. Of the few that had been portrayed, Cagney in "White Heat", for example, is much more histrionic and obvious than Portman is here.I might quibble with some plot points and some really heavy-handed staging, but really this is much like middle Hitchcock without all of the psychological mumbo-jumbo to push it along.