Colonel March Investigates *** (1955, Boris Karloff, Sheila Burrell, Anthony Forwood, Ewan Roberts, Richard Wattis, John Hewer, Patricia Owens, Joan Sims) – Classic Movie Review 4596

Director Cy [Cyril] Endfield’s complex 1955 cinema feature film is stitched together out of three episodes of Boris Karloff’s then forthcoming British TV series Colonel March of Scotland Yard (1954-56). The episodes, Hot Money, Death in the Dressing Room and The New Invisible Man, were all filmed in autumn 1952.

As Colonel March, head of the Yard’s Department D3, the perennially dignified Karloff keeps his dignity even in a black eye patch and a cloak, as he solves the cases of a bank robbery for which an innocent man was framed and two murders involving tricks and disguises. But the rudimentary scripts and Sapphire Television’s cheap production undermine Carter Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr)’s intriguing stories from the Department of Queer Complaints.

In a good cast, look out for comedy star Joan Sims in her film debut, as Marjorie Dawson, Colonel March’s secretary, and a fairly rare appearance by Dirk Bogarde’s friend, longtime partner and manager, Anthony Forwood (credited as Anthony Forward), as Jim Hartley in the episode The New Invisible Man. Dana Wynter is credited as Dagmar Wynter. Sims recalls: ‘I was very nervous before the filming and I went over my lines again and again. Not that I had many lines to learn.’

Also in the cast are Ewan Roberts as Inspector Ames, Richard Wattis, John Hewer, Sheila Burrell, Sonya Hans, Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Roger Maxwell, Patricia Owens and Bernard Rebel.

It is written by Leo Davis, shot in black and white by Jonah Jones, produced by Donald Ginsberg, scored by John Lanchbery and Eric Robinson, designed by George Paterson, edited by Stanley Willis and released by Criterion.

It was Forwood’s last role apart from a walkon in Bogarde’s Permission to Kill aka The Executioner (1975).

The blacklisted Endfield is credited as director, but the TV episodes list film editor/ documentary maker Donald Ginsberg as director.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4596

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