Room to Let *** (1950, Jimmy Hanley, Valentine Dyall, Christine Silver) – Classic Movie Review 11,037

Director Godfrey Grayson’s interesting and effective 1950 Hammer Films black and white mystery thriller film Room to Let stars Jimmy Hanley as young reporter Curly Minter, who discovers that a man calling himself Dr Fell (Valentine Dyall), the strange but seemingly affable lodger of disabled Mrs Musgrave (Christine Silver), may be none other than Jack the Ripper.

In the Edwardian era, one of the patients may have escaped during a fire at an insane asylum and Curly Minter becomes convinced that he has taken lodgings at a local middle-class household, with the mother forced to let a room to a stranger because she needs the money. Dr Fell dominates the three women in the house – mother, daughter Molly (Constance Smith) and maid – and shuts them off from outside contact.

Dyall makes the most of his creepy role, Hanley is good and the rest of the acting is spirited enough in this rather ingenious and intriguing, if stagy crime thriller from Hammer Films studios, with a similar yarn to The Lodger and the novelty of Charles Hawtrey in a semi-serious role, as Mike Atkinson.

Set between 3 September and 5 November 1904, it is based on a BBC radio drama play by famed thriller writer Margery Allingham, broadcast in 1947. Thanks in large part to Ms Allingham’s original, but also to the careful adaptation, the film is as eerie and suspenseful as intended, and as is reasonably possible from a minor Brit B-movie quota quickie of the time. It is one of only two plays written by Ms Allingham, following A Corner in Crime. Her masterwork is the 1952 novel The Tiger in the Smoke, filmed in 1956 as Tiger in the Smoke.

Also in the cast are Merle Tottenham (final film), Charles Hawtrey, Constance Smith, Aubrey Dexter, Anthony La Penna, Reginald Dyson, Laurence Naismith, John Clifford, Stuart Saunders, Cyril Conway, Charles Houston, Charles Mander, Harriet Petworth [Harriet Peterworth], H Hamilton Earle, F A Williams, and Archie Callum.

In August 1949, Hammer move into the mansion of Oakley Court on the banks of the River Thames between Windsor and Maidenhead and produced five films there: The Man in Black (1949), Room to Let (1949), Someone at the Door (1949), What the Butler Saw (1950), and The Lady Craved Excitement (1950).

Hammer Films returned to Jack the Ripper for Hands of the Ripper (1971) and Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971).

Room to Let is directed by Godfrey Grayson, runs 68 minutes, is made by Hammer Films, is released by Exclusive Films (1950) (UK), is written by John Gilling and Godfrey Grayson, based on a radio play by Margery Allingham, is shot in black and white by Cedric Williams, is produced by Anthony Hinds, is scored by Frank Spencer and is designed by Denis Wreford.

It was released on 15 May 1950.

The cast are Jimmy Hanley as Curly Minter, Valentine Dyall as Doctor Fell, Christine Silver as Mrs Musgrave, Merle Tottenham as Alice, Constance Smith as Molly Musgrave, Charles Hawtrey as Mike Atkinson, Aubrey Dexter as Harding, Anthony La Penna as JJ, Reginald Dyson as Sergeant Cranbourne, Laurence Naismith as Editor, John Clifford as Atkinson, Stuart Saunders as Porter, Cyril Conway as Doctor Mansfield, Charles Houston as Tom, Harriet Petworth as Matron, Charles Mander as PC Smith, H Hamilton Earle as Orderly, F A Williams as Butler, and Archie Callum as Night Watchman.

‘I do not like thee, Doctor Fell’ is an epigram, said to have been translated by satirical English poet Tom Brown in 1680 and later recorded as a nursery rhyme and a proverb.

‘I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why – I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.’

Dr Gideon Fell is a fictional character created by John Dickson Carr as the protagonist of 23 mystery novels from 1933 to 1967.

In the third Thomas Harris Dr Hannibal Lecter novel, 1999’s Hannibal, Lecter lives in a palazzo in Florence, Italy, and works as a museum curator under the alias ‘Dr Fell’.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,037

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