Portrait of Alison *** (1955, Robert Beatty, Terry Moore, William Sylvester, Geoffrey Keen) – Classic Movie Review 10,255

Director Guy Green’s 1955 black and white British mystery crime film Portrait of Alison [Postmark for Danger] is an amazingly convoluted and satisfyingly entertaining whodunit thriller, based on Francis Durbridge’s popular Fifties TV serial, about a portrait painter artist called Tim Forrester (Robert Beatty) searching for the killers of his brother, who was a member of a gem-smuggling gang.

Inspector Colby (Geoffrey Keen) is after Forrester (Beatty) and so is a woman called Alison (Terry Moore), who takes a shine to the hero.

Portrait of Alison offers a whole trail of standard Durbridge red herrings, chases, intrigues and sudden deaths, whipped up to occasional frenzies where the TV serial cliffhanger endings were, in a neat, satisfying little movie with many points of note.

It is adapted for the screen by Guy Green and Ken Hughes.

Also in the cast are William Sylvester, Josephine Griffin, Geoffrey Keen, Allan Cuthbertson, Henry Oscar, William Lucas, Terence Alexander, Stuart Saunders, Bruno Barnabe, Raymond Francis, Marianne Stone, Sam Kydd, Jack McNaughton, Neil Wilson, Frank Thornton, Robert Raglan, Jack Howarth, John Warren, Eric Corrie and Andreas Malandrinos.

William Lucas re-creates his role from the 1955 TV serial in his first film.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,255

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