Rent Jigsaw (1962)

Excellent Murder Mystery - Jigsaw review by MD

It's a fairly good recommendation,if Halliwell's Film Guide gives you a star award.Well Jigsaw has two stars.

Not surprisingly.It's good in every endeavour,and is equal to Val Guest's other 1961 offering The Day the Earth Caught Fire.

There is no let up in the way the story moves forward,not a single moment is wasted or doesn't contain a wry bit of humour,or telling comment.

Very cinematic,superbly acted and directed.A Taut,tense excellently tailored murder mystery.

True Crime. - Jigsaw review by Steve

A strong candidate for writer-director Val Guest's best film. It's a police procedural about an investigation into a dismembered corpse which is found in a holiday home in a rather seedy postwar Brighton- based on a real life incident.

The detectives on the case are the sagacious, weary veteran Jack Warner, assisted by Ronald Lewis who does most of the leg work. They are a wonderful duo and handle the constant flow of dialogue with finesse. There are rich supporting performances all the way down the cast list.

There is a real flair to this film, with its credible and compelling screenplay, but mostly because of the sinuous, lively gaze of the camera, particularly during the examination of the murder scene. The neglected splendour of Brighton and Lewes and the big skies of the coastal suburbs convey a delightful melancholy.

All this is created with a crew who usually worked on Hammer productions, and without any incidental music at all. OK, Val Guest ended up making a Confessions film, and Space 1999, but at his peak he was a significant talent in postwar UK cinema. This is a classic British noir.

Women behaving bizarrely - Jigsaw review by CP Customer

A seedy sixties Brighton backdrop provides the saving grace to this woefully dated film. The male cast carry off their roles passably with the help of a reasonable script. However the women (particularly Yolande Donlan as Jean) appear to have staggered off the set of Village of the Damned, so bizarre are their appalling lines and the deranged method of delivering them. This unfortunate pair swoon, weep and wimper their way through the film in a painful fashion. Sadly this harks back to a time when women in film were depicted as decorative airheads unable to function without a male to prop them up. Thankfully we’ve moved on somewhat and this disgracefully sexist writing wouldn’t make the grade today.