The Voice of Merrill (1953)

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Producers: Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman. (Available on a very good Odeon Entertainment DVD). A Tempean Production, made at Alliance Film Studios. Released in the U.S.A. through Kramer-Hyams Films. New York opening at the Normandie: 4 April 1953. U.K. release through Eros: 5 January 1953. Australian release through British Empire Films: 16 September 1954. Sydney opening as a support at the State Theatre. 7,581 feet. 84 minutes. Censored to 7,517 feet in Australia.U.S. release title: Murder Will Out. SYNOPSIS: Three people are suspected of a murder. One of them is a self-styled literary genius. Another is an unsuccessful writer who, in the course of the action, achieves great acclaim by reading his stories on the radio. Plot sound familiar? Indeed it is. It's an obvious variant on "The Unsuspected" directed and produced by Michael Curtiz at Warner Brothers in 1947, starring Claude Rains as the literary broadcaster.COMMENT: John Gilling's direction rates not quite as high on the inventive scale as usual, as he is a trifle too respectful to his own script — an ingeniously complicated thriller with a well- thought- out climax.Nonetheless, the acting throughout scores a commendably high standard, though the lovely Valerie Hobson is not always too attractively photographed.OTHER VIEWS: This long drawn-out murder mystery fails to keep up the suspense despite its many twists... Valerie Hobson goes through most of the film with a fixed, impish smile. — M.F.B.A slickly calculated whodunit, engrossing all the way... James Robertson Justice is excellent, Valerie Hobson is beautiful and sensitive in this tense, innuendo-filled, meticulously woven thriller. — A. H. Weiler in The New York Times.

After an arresting opening murder scene, THE VOICE OF MERRILL soon becomes one of the stodgiest murder mysteries I've seen from Britain in the 1950s. It wasn't until the mid to late part of the decade that British thrillers started to become more influenced by the American film noir/crime thriller genre, thus incorporating more action and incident into the narratives.Certainly THE VOICE OF MERRILL comes across as a rather dated and ho-hum sort of film with a story that barely registers. The viewer is introduced to four separate characters, each of whom has a motive for committing the early murder: there's the up-and-coming author (played by THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED's Edward Underdown), the snobbish literary figure (played by James Robertson Justice, doing his best Orson Welles impersonation) and his wife, and the shifty publisher (Henry Kendall, of THE GHOST CAMERA fame).Much of this film seems to get bogged down in radio play material which doesn't really add anything, plus an unwelcome romantic sub-plot between Underdown and the wife character. The latter is played by the lovely Valerie Hobson (WEREWOLF OF London), still an alluring beauty some twenty years after she first came to fame. Sam Kydd has a larger supporting role than usual as one of the younger detectives investigating the case. John Gilling, who later became one of Hammer's go-to guys in the 1960s, could usually be relied upon to direct more entertaining produce than this.

The Voice of Merrill (AKA: Murder Will Out) is directed by John Gilling who also adapts the screenplay from a story written by Terence Austin and Gerald Landeau. It stars Valerie Hobson, James Robertson Justice, Edward Underdown, Gary Marsh and Henry Kendall. Music is by Frank Cordell and cinematography by Monty Berman.A British Who Done It? Thriller Out of Tempean Films, The Voice of Merrill begins with the murder of a pretty lady, the perpetrator unseen of course, and thus begins a tale of blackmail, illicit affairs, dastardly plotting, sleuthing and the vagaries of fate. It's a complex screenplay in many ways, perhaps unnecessary so, and Gilling strains to make all the threads amount to anything akin to suspense. However, once the momentum builds, and the net closes in on the suspects, the makers unleash some genuine surprises that in turn lead to a dramatic climax of some memorable impact. The acting is only OK, though it's always fun to see Robertson Justice doing one of his big bluff cantankerous acts. 6.5/10

Three people are suspected by Scotland Yard of killing convicted blackmailer Jean Bridges (unaccredited). The people in question are struggling author Hugh Allen (Edward Underdown) whom was going out with the murdered woman but it broke off due to unhappy circumstances. Allen's publisher Ronald Parker (Henry Kendall) is also a possible candidate because Jean Bridges blackmailed him out of three-thousand pounds whilst she was working as his secretary and finally there's the arrogant play write Jonathan Roach (James Robertson Justice) whom also knew the dead girl, but is very vague about his acquaintance with her. Inspector Thornton (Garry Marsh) discovers that none of these men have satisfactory alibis for the time of the murder so he decides to shadow these people and wait for the guilty party to give himself away. Meanwhile, Hugh Allen has fallen in love with Roach's wife Alycia (Valerie Hobson) and in order to boost her new lover's flagging career, she persuades her husband to let Allen be the narrator of his new radio serial "The Voice Of Merill". Roach agrees as he doesn't want his name associated with the stories and Alycia then suggests that she and Allen commit a fraud and claim the works as their own. She is confident that they can get away with it as her husband has a chronic heart condition and can't live for much longer. He dies but not before he has discovered what Alycia and Hugh are up to. By bribing Ronald Parker whom is in financial trouble, Roach concocts a nasty posthumous revenge that involves them both in a murder plot...I was attracted to watch The Voice Of Merrill because it was an early work by director John Gilling, who would subsequently go on to direct two of the very best Hammer horrors, The Plague Of The Zombies and The Reptile. Before that he was a very prolific director of quota quickies such as this one, which was very much the case for another of Hammer's best directors, Terence Fisher. A number of these early efforts by these guys seem very interesting but rather frustratingly have proved to be practically untraceable. Of those I have been able to see (thanks to the wonders of satellite television) have varied in quality. In this case, The Voice Of Merill, is one of Gilling's better early efforts.It was produced for a mere £25.000 as a quota quickie, but obvious care was taken with the photography and the set work and on its merits the picture was elevated to co-feature status on its release in 1952. Gilling directs from his own script here and he turns in a very fine little picture with great suspense and a fantastic twist at the end. There's an edge of seat scene near the end where Alycia thinks she's killed her husband by spiking his Port with poison. She left the room and returned to find him lying dead. When Inspector Thornton informs her that an autopsy will be required she's in hysterics. However, when Thornton returns after the postmortem it transpires that it was his heart that gave out. Alycia can't understand why the poison didn't show in the autopsy and her butler then informs her that he was clearing up a stain on the carpet, which indicates that the wine was spilt before Roach died. She is overjoyed and thinks they've got away with it but there was more to Roach's scheme that met the eye.In addition, Gilling had a marvelous cast here and Valerie Hobson as the unhappy wife Alycia and James Robertson Justice as the obnoxious and self-centered play write Jonathan Roach are standout. Very few of the quota quickies from this period are anything special in terms of acting, direction, writing or suspense so this is a refreshing change from what one would normally expect of this medium.