We Shall See ** (1964, Maurice Kaufmann, Faith Brook, Alec Mango) – Classic Movie Review 10,838

Director Quentin Lawrence’s 1964 British black and white crime film We Shall See stars Maurice Kaufmann and Faith Brook as unhappily married couple Evan and Alva Collins, in another case of murder most foul in this minor but not so musty Edgar Wallace filler thriller. It is adapted from a 1926 novel We Shall See! by Edgar Wallace and is believed to be the first killer bee movie, pre-dating The Deadly Bees by two years.

Faith Brook, the daughter of Clive Brook, gives a strong performance in an unpleasant, hard-to-play role as Alva (Faith Brook), the viciously controlling, mentally unbalanced wife of civil airline pilot Evan Collins (Maurice Kaufmann), who wants to make him leave his job and quit flying. Crucially, though, she has a phobia about bees. However, someone throws a hive of bees into her bedroom and she is killed. Police deduce the killer knew Alva was scared of bees, and of course suspicion naturally falls on the husband.

We Shall See is well acted, briskly handled, and short at 61 minutes, and it is fairly sharp too, with enough suspense and tension to sustain it, and also it ends up quite satisfyingly with a strong bee-led conclusion.

Also in the cast are Alec Mango as Ludo, Alex MacIntosh as Greg Thomas, Hugh Paddick as Connell, Talitha Pol as Jirina, Bridget Armstrong as Rosemary Layton, William Abney as Shaw, Donald Morley as Superintendent, Rosemarie Frankland as Waitress, Marianne Stone as Jenny, John Kidd as Solicitor, Stephen Jack as Magistrate, Maxwell Foster as Clerk of the Court, and David Dodimead as Surgeon.

We Shall See is directed by Quentin Lawrence, runs 61 minutes, is made by Merton Park Studios, is released by Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors (1964) (UK) and AVCO Embassy Television (US) (TV), is written by Donal Giltinan, based onthe  novel We Shall See! by Edgar Wallace, is shot in black and white by James Wilson, is produced by Jack Greenwood, is scored by Bernard Ebbinghouse and designed by Peter Mullins.

It is one of a long-running series of 47 second feature films based on Edgar Wallace novels, produced at Merton Park Studios for Anglo-Amalgamated and released between 1960 and 1965 in British cinemas. Most of the films played as supporting features on the ABC Cinemas circuit, but ten of them were allocated to the rival Rank circuit. The films were later sold to American TV and screened as The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre (1959).

Most of the series has a title sequence with a shadowed bust of Edgar Wallace revolving slowly against a backdrop of swirling mist, accompanied by the ‘Man of Mystery’ theme written by Michael Carr, later recorded by The Shadows, a top five hit record in the UK.

In Britain, the series was shown by ITV, Channel 4 and Bravo and re-shown on Talking Pictures TV from 2018. In July 2012, Network DVD began to release the complete series on DVD.

Titles also include The Malpas Mystery (October 1960), Ricochet (March 1963), Never Mention Murder (November 1964) and Dead Man’s Chest (October 1965).

The films of Quentin Lawrence: The Trollenberg Terror (1958), Cash on Demand (1961), The Man Who Finally Died (1963), We Shall See (1964), and The Secret of Blood Island (1964).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,838

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