Act of Murder (1964)
A dangerous psychological game plays out between a man and the husband of the lover who spurned him.
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Reviews
Sadly Over-hyped
For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
This is one of the 369 films included in Micheal F Keaney's excellent British Film Noir Guide. He gives it three stars out of five. Originally made as theatrical B features, the Edgar Wallace titles, forty-seven in all, were sold as an anthology series to TV. If, like me, you were born in 1961 or thereabouts , they were a familiar late night treat back in pre-video days when there were only three channels. Not all of them, according to Keaney, qualify as noir. This one certainly does. John Carson plays the spurned lover of Justine Lord (who is given many close-ups by James Wilson's excellent camera) while Anthony Bate plays the justifiably wary husband. The plot is unusual, and the tension mounts, as Carson plays a dangerous psychological game. Twenty minutes in (the entire film is 62 minutes) you might think you know where this is going but the plot takes some interesting turns. Fans of British noir will enjoy it.