Jigsaw **** (1962, Jack Warner, Ronald Lewis, Yolande Donlan, Michael Goodliffe, John le Mesurier, Moira Redmond) – Classic Movie Review 7782

Writer-producer-director Val Guest’s 1962 British black and white noir-style crime film Jigsaw is a first-class old-fashioned whodunit with Jack Warner taking a busman’s holiday from his TV role as PC George Dixon in Dixon of Dock Green to play Detective Inspector Fred Fellows, the police detective inspector investigating, along with Detective Sergeant Jim Wilks (Ronald Lewis), the murder of a woman in a remote house along the English south coast from the seaside town of Brighton.

Director Guest tells the tale with engrossing attention to the plot’s minutiae and atmosphere, as well as a characterful and colourful exploration of Brighton and its East Sussex environs (Hove, Peacehaven) and profitable concentration on the intricacies of police procedure.

Michael Goodliffe plays Clyde Burchard and Guest’s wife Yolande Donlan also stars as Jean Sherman, with John le Mesurier as Mr Simpson, Moira Redmond as Joan Simpson and Christine Bocca as Mrs Simpson. Also in the cast are John Barron, Brian Oulton, Ray Barrett, Joan Newell, Reginald Marsh, Graham Payn, Norman Chappell, John Horsley, Geoffrey Bayldon, Timothy Bateson, Peter Ashmore, Charles Lamb, Marianne Stone and Gerald Campion.

Guest’s screenplay is based on Hillary Waugh’s novel Sleep Long, My Love.

Jigsaw is directed by Val Guest, runs 107 minutes, is made by Britannia, Figaro and Beverly, is released by British Lion, is written by Val Guest, is shot in black and white and widescreen by Arthur Grant, is produced by Val Guest and designed by Geoffrey Tozer.

Jack Warner as PC Dixon in Dixon of Dock Green.

Dixon of Dock Green (1955–1976) ran a remarkable 22 seasons. The PC Dixon character started out in the 1950 film The Blue Lamp.

Graham Payn (25 April 1918 – 4 November 2005) was a South African-born English actor and singer, and the life partner of  Noël Coward. Payn also acted in the 1949 Borstal drama Boys in Brown, with Dirk Bogarde and Richard Attenborough, and appeared in two films with Coward: The Astonished Heart (1950) and The Italian Job (1968), in which Coward played a criminal mastermind with Payn as his obsequious assistant.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7782

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