Blind Spot *** (1958, Robert MacKenzie, Delphi Lawrence, Gordon Jackson, Michael Caine) – Classic Movie Review 11,207

A blind American army officer, a mysterious death, a smuggling operation and a man called Johnny Brent (Michael Caine) who knows about the theft and murders… It’s the 1958 British black and white crime thriller Blind Spot.

Director Peter Maxwell’s 1958 British black and white crime thriller Blind Spot stars Robert Mackenzie as a blind American army officer, Captain Dan Adams, who enters the wrong flat and stumbles across a corpse, then gets thumped on the head by the killers (Ronan O’Casey, George Pastell) and chucked down a flight of stairs, which cures him of his blindness when he revives in hospital.

Captain Dan next finds himself framed on a diamond-smuggling charge and goes on to uncover a jewel-smuggling racket run by June Brent (Anne Sharp) and her brother Johnny Brent (played by thin curly-headed, handsome 25-year-old Michael Caine), who try to set him up as the fall-guy.

With nothing especially surprising about Kenneth R Hayles’s serviceable, if far-fetched screenplay, based on an original story by Robert S Baker, this is little more than a routine B-movie thriller from the Robert S Baker and Monty Berman production team, remaking their own 1950 film Blackout. But the pace pounds along, the tension crackles and the cast is notable. It is worth checking out.

It is shot at Walton Studios, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, and on location at the Majestic Hotel, Kensington, London.

Also in the cast are Delphi Lawrence, Gordon Jackson, Anne Sharp, Michael Caine, John le Mesurier, George Pastell, Ernest Clark, Ronan O’Casey, Andrew Faulds, John Crawford, Jane Sothern, Diane Potter, Angela Krefeld, Stuart Saunders, Leigh Madison, Tom Gill, Paulle Clarke, E Kerrigan Prescott, Arthur Lowe and Robert Gallico.

Blind Spot is directed by Peter Maxwell, runs 72 or 78 minutes, is made by Butcher’s Film Service, is released by Butcher’s Film Service, is written by Kenneth R Hayles, based on an original story by Robert S Baker, is shot by Arthur Graham, is produced by Robert S Baker and Monty Berman, scored by Stanley Black (stock music) and John Lanchbery (stock music), and designed by George Beech.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,207

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Maxwell Reed as Chris Pelly in Blackout (1950).