Dick Barton Strikes Back *** (1949, Don Stannard, Bruce Walker, Sebastian Cabot) – Classic Movie Review 6578

Hammer’s 1949 British thriller film Dick Barton Strikes Back is the middle episode of the Dick Barton trilogy. Don Stannard is back as Special Agent Dick Barton fighting spies out to send atomic rays from the top of Blackpool Tower.

Director Godfrey Grayson’s 1949 British thriller film Dick Barton Strikes Back is the middle episode of the Dick Barton trilogy, started with Dick Barton – Special Agent (1948). However, Dick Barton Strikes Back was actually the third of the three Hammer Film Productions made about the agent, although it was the second released.

Dick Barton Strikes Back is the best of the three, and Don Stannard is back as Special Agent Dick Barton with his chum Snowey White (Bruce Walker) to fight the spies out to send atomic rays from the top of Blackpool Tower and destroy parts of England.

Ambrose Grayson and Elizabeth Baron’s screenplay, based on Grayson’s story and the radio serial by Edward J Mason, is playfully preposterous, and the film is all very jolly fun with an element of sci-fi adding to the espionage mystery, making it a notch or two up from Dick Barton – Special Agent (1948). The very basic Marylebone/ Exclusive/ Hammer production values and rudimentary handling are the demerits.

Peter Wyngarde.

Sebastian Cabot enjoys himself something rotten as the all-purpose foreigner super-baddie, Alfonso Fouracuda. Peter Wyngarde plays a soldier in his uncredited film debut. Also in the cast are Jean Lodge, James Raglan, Humphrey Kent, John Harvey, Morris Sweden, Tony Morelli, George Crawford, Sidney Vivian, Jimmy O’Dea and Larry Taylor.

Dick Barton Strikes Back is directed by Godfrey Grayson, runs 73 minutes, is made by Marylebone/ Exclusive/ Hammer, is shot in black and white by Cedric Williams, is produced by Anthony Hinds and Mae Murray, is scored by Frank Spencer and Rupert Grayson, and is designed by Ivan King.

Driving back from the wrap party, Stannard and Cabot were involved in a car crash in Cookham Dean, Berkshire, England, on 9 July 1949. Stannard, aged only 33, was killed instantly but Cabot escaped with minor injuries.

The trilogy concludes with Dick Barton at Bay (1950).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6,578

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Peter Wyngarde plays a soldier in his uncredited film debut.