Lance Comfort again fashions a compelling suspense film out of a meagre budget. There are no stars, no elaborate lighting arrangements. The set decoration is dismayingly threadbare and flimsy. And yet this is an unusually absorbing B feature.
And Comfort scripts a compelling premise from a forgotten novel by an obscure writer. A suave, married suburbanite (William Franklyn) works for a firm which designs safes for banks. He staggers home after an assault in a bomb site, to find he has been missing for three weeks and has no memory of where he has has been.
And the detective hired by his wife (Moira Redmond) to find him has turned up dead. Which is an excellent film noir set up! Pure Cornell Woolrich. Sadly there's no money for expressionist visuals. Franklyn lacks real star charisma, but he is still fine as a noirish everyman caught up in a plot beyond his comprehension.
Nigel Green stands out among the support cast of likely suspects, though it's more memorable to encounter Anthony Booth as the head of the criminal gang! The easily listening soundtrack isn't typical of this genre but fits in with a key plot feature. Comfort has been reappraised as a key director of British Bs. This isn't his best, but still an effective thriller.