Murder by Proxy [Blackout] ** (1954, Dane Clark, Belinda Lee, Betty Ann Davies) – Classic Movie Review 11,082

‘EXPLODES… in a sinister network of evil!’ The 1954 British crime film noir Murder by Proxy [Blackout] stars Dane Clark as a down-and-out offered money to marry a beautiful young heiress (Belinda Lee). 

‘EXPLODES… in a sinister network of evil!’

Director Terence Fisher’s 1954 British film noir crime drama B-movie Murder by Proxy [Blackout] stars Dane Clark as a down-and-out offered money to marry a beautiful young heiress (Belinda Lee).

The story, based on Helen Nielsen’s novel Murder by Proxy published in 1952, concerns drunk, broke and down-on-his-luck American Casey Morrow (Dane Clark) who is approached in a bar in London by young and beautiful blonde heiress Phyllis Brunner (Belinda Lee), offering him a lot of money to marry her. He wakes up the next morning in another woman’s apartment with blood on his coat from the murder of Phyllis’s father.

The intriguing plot and amusing dialogue keep up a fair level of interest in this reasonably enjoyable thriller, with Dane Clark, Belinda Lee and an especially entertaining Eleanor Summerfield (as Maggie Doone) all pulling their weight.

It was the first movie in an eight-film deal between UK’s Hammer Films and the US company Lippert Pictures.

Also in the cast are Betty Ann Davies as Mrs Alicia Brunner, Eleanor Summerfield as Maggie Doone, Andrew Osborn as Lance Gordon, Harold Lang as Travis / Victor Vanno, Jill Melford as Miss Nardis, Alvys Maben [Alvis Maben] as Lita Huntley, Michael Golden as Inspector Johnson, Nora Gordon as Casey’s mother, and Alfie Bass as Ernie.

The young Delphi Lawrence appears uncredited in an early role as Linda. And Cleo Laine appears as singer.

The film was shot at the Hammer’s Bray Studios in Berkshire. There was trouble on set. Script supervisor Renee Glynne recalled that Belinda Lee ‘was still very inexperienced at that time so I’d have to correct her and try to help her out. Dane Clark obviously fancied her and got very cross with my professional interference. He got quite nasty and was actually pushing me away from her.’

‘After some shots Dane Clark would have to put his head under cold water because he was so enraged that I was even there. Eventually he realised how silly it all was and went down on his knees, tears streaming down his face, begging me to forgive him. But I still asked producer Tony Hinds to take me off the next film he was in.’

Dane Clark stayed on in the UK to make producer Anthony Hinds’s 1954 Hammer Film  Five Days.

Dane Clark fluffed a line in the private detective’s office. The line was ‘He knew!’ but he says ‘I knew’. Realising his mistake, he sits down, pauses and says ‘He knew’. Director Fisher liked it and kept it in.

The cast

The cast are Dane Clark as Casey Morrow, Belinda Lee as Phyllis Brunner, Betty Ann Davies as Mrs Alicia Brunner, Eleanor Summerfield as Maggie Doone, Andrew Osborn as Lance Gordon, Harold Lang as Travis / Victor Vanno, Jill Melford as Miss Nardis, Alvys Maben as Lita Huntley, Michael Golden as Inspector Johnson, Nora Gordon as Casey’s mother, Alfie Bass as Ernie, Delphi Lawrence as Linda, Arnold Diamond as Mrs Brunner’s butler, Cleo Laine as singer, and Olive Sloane as landlady.

Murder by Proxy is directed by Terence Fisher, runs 87 minutes, is made Hammer Film Productions, is distributed by Exclusive Films (UK) and Lippert Pictures (US), is written by Richard Landau, based on Murder by Proxy by Helen Nielsen, is produced by Michael Carreras, is shot by Walter J Harvey, is scored by Ivor Slaney, and designed by J Elder Wills.

Release dates: 19 March 1954 (US) and 28 March 1955 (UK).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,082

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