80,000 Suspects *** (1963, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Yolande Donlan, Cyril Cusack) – Classic Movie Review 7022

Writer-director Val Guest’s realist 1963 British drama is based on Trevor Dudley Smith [Elleston Trevor]’s novel The Pillars of Midnight and tells an intriguing story set in Bath, Somerset, England, at the time of a smallpox epidemic, a crisis that brings a hospital doctor (Richard Johnson) and his wife (Claire Bloom) back close again.

Dr Steven Monks (Johnson) finds that his fellow worker Clifford Preston (Michael Goodliffe)’s straying wife Ruth (Yolande Donlan) is the cause of all the trouble. Bloom, Johnson, Donlan, Goodliffe and Cyril Cusack as Father Maguire lack warmth in their performances, but carry on as professionally as always. The film is a trifle uninspired and underpowered, though director Guest handles things briskly and capably. Though Guest was perhaps old wave, the gritty black and white 80,000 Suspects fits in quite well with the British new wave films of the era.

Also in the cast are Ursula Howells, Vanda Godsell, Ray Barrett as Health Inspector Bennett, Basil Dignam, Kay Walsh as Matron, Norman Bird, Norman Chappell, Arthur Christiansen as Mr Graney, editor of the Bath Evening Chronicle, Andrew Crawford and Jill Curzon as Nurse Jill.

80,000 Suspects is directed by Val Guest, runs 113 minutes, is produced by The Rank Organisation, released by J Arthur Rank Film Distributors (UK) and Continental Distributing (US), is written by Val Guest, based on Trevor Dudley Smith [Elleston Trevor]’s novel Pillars of Midnight, is shot in black and white by Arthur Grant, produced by Val Guest and scored by Stanley Black.

The title is taken from an estimate of the population of Bath, where the film is set and was shot in the winter of 1963. The snow started melting during filming so the production had to use artificial snow. The real newspaper vendor in the Abbey Church Yard appears in the film, premiered at the Odeon cinema. Elleston Trevor’s novel was adapted for TV five years earlier.

Yolande Donlan’s dresses are by Christian Dior.

Yolande Donlan, who died on 30 December 2014, aged 94, was the wife of Val Guest, who was also 94 when he died on 10 May 2006. Guest is fondly remembered for The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), The Abominable Snowman (1957), The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), Hell Is a City (1960) and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970).

Trevor Dudley Smith (1920–1995) also wrote the source novel of The Quiller Memorandum as Adam Hall, the source novel of The Flight of the Phoenix as Elleston Trevor, and the source novel of the 1958 Dunkirk (The Big Pickup) as Elleston Trevor.

Arthur Christiansen also played the newspaper editor in Guest’s The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) after recently retiring as the real-life editor of The Daily Express.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7022

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