House of Blackmail ** (1953, Mary Germaine, William Sylvester, Alexander Gauge, John Arnatt, Denis Shaw, Ingeborg Wells, Patricia Owens)

The 1953 British filler thriller film House of Blackmail stars Mary Germaine and William Sylvester as a fashion photographer and a soldier who become mixed up with a blackmailer and murder.

Director Maurice Elvey’s 1953 British second feature thriller filler film House of Blackmail stars Mary Germaine, William Sylvester, Alexander Gauge, John Arnatt, Denis Shaw, Ingeborg Wells, and Patricia Owens.

A blackmailer called John Markham (Alexander Gauge) is killed by a telephone wire in Markham’s isolated country house that the killer discovers is harder to get out of than it was to get into as the house is surrounded by a high-tension circuit.

Crook John Markham demands £5,000 hush money from playboy Billy Blane (Barry Wynne) after he forges Markham’s signature on a cheque. Blane seeks help from his feisty young sister Carol (Mary Germaine), who drives to his house, along the way picking up hitchhiker Jimmy (William Sylvester), who says he will pose as her lawyer.

Both the hitcher, British army officer Jimmy (William Sylvester), and the feisty young woman, fashion photographer Carol Blane (Mary Germaine), are suspected of the murder and have to find the real killer to stay out of jail.

House of Blackmail is a fairly ingeniously set up but rather silly mystery thriller eventually running on pretty familiar lines, with little to boast about in the way of credible plot development or mounting tension. But the enthusiastic acting (especially by Mary Germaine, William Sylvester, John Arnatt, Ingeborg Wells and Denis Shaw) and the pacey, energetic direction are compensations. It’s hard to believe a single word of Allan MacKinnon’s screenplay, but it is cheekily amusing none the less.

It is made at Nettlefold Studios Walton-on-Thames.

English film actress Mary Germaine was born on 28 March 1933

Mary Germaine’s film career lasted from 1951 till an uncredited role as BEA receptionist in her final film Out of the Clouds (1955),

The cast

The cast are Mary Germaine as Carol Blane, William Sylvester as Jimmy, Alexander Gauge as John Markham, John Arnatt as Pete Carter, Denis Shaw as Bassett, Ingeborg Wells [Ingeborg von Kusserow] as Emma, Patricia Owens as Joan, C Denier Warren as Jock, Hugo Schuster as Dr Welich, Barry Wynne as Billy Blane.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,361

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