Director Robert Tronson’s 1961 British Edgar Wallace Mystery second feature crime B-film Man Detained features Bernard Archard, Elvi Hale, Paul Stassino, and Michael Coles. It is part of the essential 48-film series of Edgar Wallace Mysteries films made at Merton Park Studios from 1960 to 1965.
Michael Coles plays petty burglar Frank Murray, who sets off a chain of criminal events when he breaks into the office safe of photographer Thomas Maple (Victor Platt) and steals £10,000 in forged five pound bank notes.
Because the stolen money is counterfeit, the safe owner now can’t declare its theft to Detective Inspector Verity (Bernard Archard) of the London police, instead only reporting the loss of $20 in real notes.
The forged notes belong to crime boss James Helder (Paul Stassino), who wants them back, and the police want him. Helder is having an affair with Maple’s wife Stella (Ann Sears). Later, Helder kidnaps Maple’s secretary Kay Simpson (Elvi Hale) because she knows too much.
Man Detained has more or less everything it needs, coming complete with an engrossing well-constructed mystery plot, dense but not over-complex, topped off with an all-action finish with gunplay and a chase, plenty of pace and smart low budget filming, with, most usefully and atmospherically, considerably more outside filming than usual. There are lots of cars of the era and that’s what Barons Court tube station looked like then. They’ve made London look a desperately drab, really rundown place, still in postwar decay, the ideal setting for forgery, theft, deceit, double-dealing and murder.
Bernard Archard gets well deserved star billing, and makes an excellent sharp and canny no-nonsense police inspector (just look at that beady look in his eyes!), Elvi Hale is a supremely resourceful ultra-capable secretary, Paul Stassino a slimy villain, and Michael Coles a sparky cheeky chappie. The casting and performances are just right. Hale and Coles make you think they deserved higher profile careers.
The Maple Photography office is in a building called Merton House. The film is made by Merton Park Studios.
Release date: October 1961.
The screenplay is by British writer Richard Harris (born 26 March 1934), based on the 1916 Edgar Wallace novel A Debt Discharged.
The cast are Bernard Archard as Detective Inspector Verity, Elvi Hale as Kay Simpson, Paul Stassino as James Helder, Michael Coles as Frank Murray, Ann Sears as Stella Maple, Victor Platt as Thomas Maple, Patrick Jordan as Brand, Clifford Earl as Detective Sergeant Wentworth, Gerald Lawson as old man, Jean Aubrey as Gillian Murray, and Gareth Davies as police constable.
Michael Coles (12 August 1936 – 26 April 2005) appeared in three of the Edgar Wallace films of the early sixties: Man Detained, Solo for Sparrow and Never Mention Murder.
Elvi Hale (born Patricia Elvira Hake on 29 January 1931) was nominated for a BAFTA award for most promising film newcomer for True as a Turtle (1957). She played Heather, Leslie Phillips’s love interest in the film of The Navy Lark (1959). She retired in 1990.
© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,328
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The Edgar Wallace Mysteries
There were 48 films in the British second-feature film series The Edgar Wallace Mysteries, produced at Merton Park Studios for Anglo-Amalgamated and released in cinemas between 1960 and 1965.
Crossroads to Crime (1960) and Seven Keys (1961) were not shot as part of the series but were later included. Urge to Kill (1960) may not originally have been intended as part of the series.