Dark Secret ** (1949, Dinah Sheridan, Emrys Jones) – Classic Movie Review 13,024

Dark Secret (1949, Dinah Sheridan).

The 1949 British black and white crime thriller film Dark Secret stars Dinah Sheridan and Emrys Jones as a couple obsessed with the murdered woman who used to live in their country cottage.

Director Maclean Rogers’s 1949 British black and white thriller film Dark Secret is based on the play The Crime at Blossoms by Mordaunt Shairp, and stars Dinah Sheridan and Emrys Jones.

Dark Secret is a mild, though fairly involving low-budget crime yarn, in which impoverished young marrieds Val and Chris Merryman (Dinah Sheridan and Emrys Jones) return to their country cottage to find the woman they have been forced to let it out to is now a corpse. Val become so obsessed with the murder that she starts thinking she is possessed by the woman’s spirit, so Chris tries to uncover the truth before she loses her mind.

Director Rogers remakes his own 1933 movie, The Crime at Blossoms, the title of the source play by Mordaunt Shairp, to some if not great effect, helped enormously by the two likeable star performances and some enjoyable appearances by the essential character actors, some of them (Irene Handl, Percy Marmont, Geoffrey Sumner, Charles Hawtrey, Laurence Naismith) much loved.

Also in the cast are Irene Handl, Hugh Pryse, Barbara Couper, Percy Marmont, Geoffrey Sumner, Mackenzie Ward, Charles Hawtrey, John Salew, George Merritt, Stanley Vilven, Grace Arnold, Esme Beringer, Molly Hamley-Clifford, Terry Randall, Edgar Driver, Laurence Naismith, and Johnnie Schofield.

Dark Secret is directed by Maclean Rogers, runs 85 minutes, is made by Nettlefold Films, is released by Butcher’s Film Service, is written by Moie Charles and A R Rawlinson, based on the novel The Crime at Blossoms by Mordaunt Shairp, is shot in black and white by Walter J Harvey, produced by Ernest G Roy, and scored by George Melachrino.

Director Maclean Rogers’s 1933 British crime film The Crime at Blossoms starred Hugh Wakefield and Joyce Bland as Chris and Val Merryman.

English dramatist Alexander Mordaunt Shairp (13 March 1887 – 18 January 1939) was a schoolmaster in London and wrote many plays for pupils to perform. His play The Green Bay Tree, which premièred at St Martin’s Theatre in London’s West End on 25 January 1933 and was later performed on Broadway, was controversial because of its gay subtext. Shairp also spent a spell in Hollywood as a screenwriter, working on The Dark Angel (1935, cowritten with Lillian Hellman), The White Angel (1936) and Wee Willie Winkie (1937).

The cast are Dinah Sheridan as Valerie Merryman, Emrys Jones as Chris Merryman, Irene Handl as ‘Woody’ Woodman, Hugh Pryse as A Very Late Visitor, Barbara Couper as Mrs. Barrington, Percy Marmont as Vicar, Geoffrey Sumner as Jack Farrell, Mackenzie Ward as Artist, Charles Hawtrey as Arthur Figson, John Salew as Mr Barrington, George Merritt as Mr. Lumley, Stanley Vilven as Mr. Woodman, Grace Arnold as Housewife, Esme Beringer as Elderly Lady, Edgar Driver as barman George, Molly Hamley-Clifford as Fat Woman, Laurence Naismith as Mr. Grossmith, Terry Randall as Daughter, and Johnnie Schofield as Motor Coachman.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,024

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