Law and Disorder *** (1958, Michael Redgrave, Robert Morley, Ronald Squire, Joan Hickson, Lionel Jeffries) – Classic Movie Review 7990

‘Michael Redgrave with an ingenious hand for disorder … Robert Morley as the intrepid arm of the law.’ Director Charles Crichton’s 1958 Law and Disorder is a smart, pacy and amusing Ealing Studios-style caper comedy, offering the star pleasures of Michael Redgrave and Robert Morley plus a delightful vintage Brit comedy cast.

Law and Disorder finds confidence trickster Percy Brand (Michael Redgrave) trying to conceal the truth from his upright son Colin (Jeremy Burnham), who has become a judge’s marshal, forcing Redgrave into quick early retirement by the coast, where he gets mixed up with smugglers.

Entertaining performances all round, especially from Robert Morley, Joan Hickson and Lionel Jeffries, add to the fun, indeed really they are the fun. Last-minute cutting took 15 minutes from the film, making it fast and lean but a tad thin, running just 76 minutes.

With lines like ‘My client is applying for an injunction to restrain her husband’s parrot,’ T E B Clarke, Patrick Campbell and Vivienne Knight’s screenplay is based on Denys Roberts’s novel Smuggler’s Circuit. Director Crichton and writer Clarke gave us the Ealing classic The Lavender Hill Mob, though this is not in that class.

Also in the cast are Ronald Squire, Elizabeth Sellars, George Coulouris, Harold Goodwin, Meredith Edwards, Brenda Bruce, David Hutcheson, John le Mesurier, Michael Trubshawe, Reginald Beckwith, Moultrie Kelsall, Irene Handl, Mary Kerridge, Alan Cuthbertson, Sam Kydd, John Warwick, Nora Nicholson, Alfred Burke and Arthur Howard.

It is made in black and white by Paul Soskin Productions and British Lion Film Corporation, and released by British Lion in the UK and Continental Distributing in the US.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7990

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