Paul Temple’s Triumph *** (1950, John Bentley, Dinah Sheridan, Jack Livesey, Barbara Couper, Hugh Dempster, Dino Galvani, Beatrice Varley, Joseph O’Conor) – Classic Movie Review 4,486

John Bentley and Dinah Sheridan return as the married sleuths on the trail of an international gang of criminals trying to steal atomic secrets, in crime writer Francis Durbridge’s twisty low-budget 1950 British mystery thriller film Paul Temple’s Triumph.

John Bentley effectively re-creates his role as novelist-sleuth Paul Temple in director Maclean Rogers’s twisty low-budget 1950 British mystery thriller film Paul Temple’s Triumph, based on Francis Durbridge’s 1939 BBC radio serial News of Paul Temple. The alluring Dinah Sheridan returns gracefully as his married partner and partner in crime solving, Steve.

The film is the third of the four Paul Temple movies made at Nettlefold Studios in Walton‑on‑Thames, Surrey, England. Its screenplay is written by Durbridge together with A R Rawlinson.

This time Temple, along with his glamorous wife Steve (Dinah Sheridan), investigates the murder of one of their friends, Celia Hardwick (Anne Hayes), and the abduction of the friend’s father Professor Hardwick (Andrew Leigh), a prominent atomic scientist. Then the Temples have to battle a sinister international crime organisation headed by a mysterious figure known only as Z, who trying to steal the crucial atomic secrets, in this nicely twisting and well-acted but shakily handled and often all-too-cheap-looking Francis Durbridge thriller.

The low budget shows. It is very studio bound, mostly shot at Nettlefold Studios in Walton‑on‑Thames, Surrey. There is some precious outside filming in the New Forest, at Northolt Airport, and at Clandon railway station in Surrey, but that just makes you hungry for more.

Despite its humble status as a Quota Quickie and its faults, it is acceptably entertaining and keeps moving briskly along in its short running time of 76 minutes. John Bentley and Dinah Sheridan are effective and convincing as the married sleuths and are pleasant company, making the going smooth and easy. Jack Livesey is an asset as Sir Graham Forbes, the Deputy Commissioner at Scotland Yard, and so are Beatrice Varley as the snappy and sinister Mrs Weston and Joseph O’Conor as Scotland Yard’s Inspector Crane.

It is always good to have aboard Bruce Seton as newspaperman Bill Bryant and Peter Butterworth as telephone engineer, the latter handing some of the film’s inexpertly written comedy relief. Talking writing, the screenplay could do with sparking up with much more witty banter for the Temples, and some amusing one-liners. They’ve got the right actors to handle it and too often John Bentley and Dinah Sheridan are stranded without the smart dialogue they would have in a similar American movie.

Nevertheless, Francis Durbridge’s exotic plotting sees it through to success, with all the cliches in the book carefully assembled, even lovingly assembled: with much enjoyable nonsense about an atomic scientist and his crucial secrets, an international crime organisation, a mysterious mastermind figure, a singing foreign femme fatale (Jenny Mathot as the deliciously devious Jacqueline Giraud) and even a secret passage!

It’s a fascinating far-off world where women wear unique perfume that is made specially for them in Paris and can be easily detected on anything they touch; where cigarettes are rationed, but smoked everywhere all the time (and you can drug the heroine by offering her one); and where petrol is rationed too, but people can smuggle it in basement former air-raid shelters. Durbridge gives us a fragrant, quite heady whiff of this vanished world.

It was also the days when people travelled in style, well some people maybe. The Temples drive a car to die for: an Aston Martin Two-Litre Sports (latterly known as a DB‑1), registration number EGT 293. Incredibly, only 15 of these cars were made! Paul Temple flies into Northolt Airport from Berlin on BAE aircraft G-AKBG; a Vickers Viking 1B. While Heathrow airport was being built, RAF Northolt was used by BEA as its London airport between 1946 and 1952. Talk about a vanished world!

Only nine of the 15 of the DB‑1 cars built are known to survive. There is no record of a DB‑1 ever carrying the registration EGT 293, so the plate appears to be a fictional or prop registration created for the film rather than a real world road legal number. It was most likely a loaned or temporary road registered example that was returned to its owner after production, possibly re‑registered under a different number. Surviving examples of the DB‑1 are in the collections of the UK National Motor Museum (at Beaulieu) and of several private UK and US collectors.

The screenplay is based on Francis Durbridge’s BBC radio serial News of Paul Temple, broadcast in November and December 1939), turned into a novelized by Durbridge in 1940 and remade in an abridged form for radio in 1944.

A sequel to Send for Paul Temple [The Green Finger] (1946) and Calling Paul Temple (1948), it is followed by Paul Temple Returns (1952), with John Bentley returning for the final time as Temple, but Patricia Dainton recast the role of Steve Temple, as Dinah Sheridan’s film career was apparently taking off and she was moving into larger‑budget films.

Also in the cast are Barbara Couper, Hugh Dempster, Dino Galvani, Andrew Leigh, Jack Livesey, Jenny Mathot, Ivan Samson, Bruce Seton, Beatrice Varley, Shaym Bahadur, Michael Brennan, Peter Butterworth, Leo De Pokorny, Michael Hogarth, Hamilton Keene, Frederick Morant, Dennis Val Norton, Joseph O’Conor, Jean Packer, Gerald Rex and Ben Williams.

Paul Temple’s Triumph is directed by Maclean Rogers, runs 76 minutes, is made by Nettlefold Films, is released by Butcher’s Film Service (UK), is written by Francis Durbridge and A R Rawlinson, based on Francis Durbridge’s 1939 radio serial News of Paul Temple, is shot by Brendan J Stafford, is produced by Ernest G Roy, and is scored by Wilfred Burns.

It is made at Nettlefold Studios, Walton‑on‑Thames, Surrey, England. It was founded as Cecil Hepworth’s studio in 1899, bought by Archibald Nettlefold in 1926 and renamed Nettlefold Studios, before becoming known as Walton Studios. But the studio closed in 1961, the buildings were demolished, and the site was sold for residential development. 

The cast

The cast are John Bentley as Paul Temple, Dinah Sheridan as Steve Temple, Jack Livesey as Sir Graham Forbes, Beatrice Varley as Mrs Weston, Barbara Couper as Mrs Morgan, Jenny Mathot as Jacqueline Giraud, Andrew Leigh as Professor Hardwick, Hugh Dempster as Oliver Ffollett, Dino Galvani as Van Draper, Ivan Samson as Major Murray, Bruce Seton as Bill Bryant, Leo de Pokornoy as Dr Steiner, Michael Brennan as Hammond, Joseph O’Conor as Inspector Crane, Shaym Bahadur as Rikki, Gerald Rex as Ernie, Ben Williams as Mr Weston, Anne Hayes as Celia Hardwick, Peter Butterworth as telephone engineer, Hamilton Keene as an interested visitor, Frederick Morant as doctor, Jean Parker as nurse, Denis Val Norton as first gangster, Michael Hogarth as 2nd gangster.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4,486

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com