A Case For P.C. 49 (1951)

Too much of everything

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A CASE FOR PC 49 is the second of the radio adaptations from Hammer Films. Hugh Latimer is gone, to be replaced by the instantly irritating Brian Reece who originated the PC 49 role on BBC radio. Unfortunately he plays the character as a buffoon and is thus impossible to take seriously. A shame, because the low-key plotting is quite interesting and incorporates a femme fatale, a con man, murder, an ex-convict, and some petty thieves. There are strong supporting roles for Michaels Balfour and Ripper, two of the most familiar faces in British film of the 1950s, and Christine Norden gives a good turn as the wicked woman in a role that would later be played by the likes of Diana Dors. The film itself is middling and slow to begin with, but it does end on a thrilling high.

Fashion model Christine Norden gets a threatening letter from an old boyfriend, so Reece gets sent in to guard her in plain clothes and witnesses his death .... or does he? Reece's girlfriend, Joy Shelton, has her doubts, and pursues the case, and opens a can of worms.For the first half of the movie, it seems like it's half silly and half stupid, but there are enough bits to let the viewer know that something else is going on, and there's a pretty good twist two-thirds of the way through. Although PC 49 is a kind-hearted lummox, and clearly incompetent to be more than a beat bobby, Miss Shelton makes a pretty good tec at the end. The final confrontation also has some fine noirish cinematography by Walter J. Harvey, It's never more than a second feature, but it's a satisfying example, with lots of plot and good camera-work -- although whoever chose the stock music didn't think too hard about the choices.

Based on a BBC radio series and made by Hammer Films it tells of PC 49 (actual name Archibald Berkeley-Willoughby!) who gets involved with solving a murder and a robbery assisted by his girl friend. It was the second PC 49 film and is tolerable but not very exciting though it does have a good climax in a brewery. Brian Reece as PC 49 and Joy Shelton as his fiancée Joan Carr are adequate but they are well supported by welcome character actors like Campbell Singer, Michael Balfour and Michael Ripper. An ordinary film from the busy director Francis Searle,

This was one of those unusual sequels: better than the original. It was the 2nd attempt at putting the adventures of PC 49 onto the screen, transferred from BBC radio, the 1st being filmed 2 years before in 1949. In those 2 years Hammer had come on by leaps and bounds with higher production values, better actors and acting and most of all better scripts. This still means that it creaks and abounds with those moments that contemporary serious people love to deride, so apart from it appealing to wide-eyes like me it can also draw cynical wasters too.Meanwhile the plot is cohesive and absorbing: jewel heist complements and is a screen for an elaborate murder-of-a-millionaire plan, the hifalutin murderers themselves get targeted by their lower class drones who concoct their own elaborately vicious plan in revenge. Into this morass of immorality comes hook-nosed Brian Reece playing lanky PC 49 and Joy Shelton playing his astute fiancée Joan, who are playing their own hunches despite being continually handicapped by the staid unimagination of the Met police hierarchy. They needed an Inspector with the brains of Claude Teal, stolid Gordon McLeod had to suffice instead … Michael Ripper was here again this time as a reforming ex-con, but didn't he do life at Hammer? Favourite bits: the glamorous scenes in sexy Della's swanky penthouse apartment - how tastes have changed; The baddie contemplating the necessity of polishing off Joan but not enjoying one bit socking her on the jaw. The popular radio series ran for 112 episodes from 1947 to 1953, the BBC destroyed all but 2 editions and of course makes sure that no one will ever hear them.To the believer, seventy-five minutes that can be well spent over and over again in the non-taxing company of some old friends, if you hated it kiss those seventy-five minutes goodbye forever!