The £20,000 Kiss *** (1963, Dawn Addams, Michael Goodliffe, Richard Thorp, Anthony Newlands, Alfred Burke) – Classic Movie Review 13,338

The 1963 British Edgar Wallace Mystery crime drama mystery film The £20,000 Kiss stars Dawn Addams, Michael Goodliffe, Richard Thorp, Anthony Newlands and Alfred Burke in a complex and compelling tale of blackmail and murder.

Director John Moxey’s 1963 British Edgar Wallace Mystery crime drama mystery film The £20,000 Kiss stars Dawn Addams, Michael Goodliffe, Richard Thorp, Anthony Newlands, and Alfred Burke. It is based on a story by the brilliant and prolific Edgar Wallace and is part of the series of Edgar Wallace Mysteries films made at Merton Park Studios.

Michael Goodliffe stars as an important and  influential British lawyer and politician called Sir Harold Trevitt, who is caught in a moment of passion kissing his alluring married neighbour Maxine Hagen (Dawn Addams) in a compromising photograph taken by her maid Paula (Mia Karam), who turns out to be part of a sophisticated blackmail scam.

Trevitt pays the blackmail money Paula demands, and hires private detective John Durran (Richard Thorp) to investigate. Later Trevitt goes to Paula armed with an incriminating old duelling pistol, part of a pair belonging to Addams’s husband Leo (Anthony Newlands), but finds her murdered. John Durran seeks the help of the surprisingly friendly and amiable Scotland Yard police Inspector Waveney (Alfred Burke) to crack the case.

The £20,000 Kiss is blessed with a complex and compelling tale, and it is expertly told and very nicely acted. The mystery is as enjoyable as it is baffling, and that really is something. Philip Mackie bases his clever, smooth screenplay securely on a story by Wallace.

The five main actors are tremendous, with Dawn Addams a splendid femme fatale, beautiful but bad and dangerous to know, luring men to their desperate fate, and Anthony Newlands deliciously dodgy as the smug husband, though no more so than the painstaking portrait of devious villainy that Michael Goodliffe conjures up. Paul Whitsun-Jones is a bit of a pain as plump and camp gossip journalist Charles Pinder, but then that’s the role, and it’s credible, and Richard Thorp as John Durran and Alfred Burke as Inspector Waveney are kings of cool as the film’s surprise good guys, the film’s only good guys, it turns out.

The £20,000 Kiss was released in January 1963.

Anthony Newlands also appears in The Fourth Square and Solo for Sparrow.

The cast

The cast are Dawn Addams as Maxine Hagen, Michael Goodliffe as Sir Harold Trevitt, Richard Thorp as John Durran, Anthony Newlands as Leo Hagen, Alfred Burke as Inspector Waveney, Mia Karam as Paula Blair, Ellen McIntosh as Ursula Clandon, Paul Whitsun-Jones as Charles Pinder, Noël Hood as Lady Clandon, John Miller as Lord Clandon, Vincent Harding as Detective Sgt Holt, Susan Denny as Susie, Joyce Henson as landlady, Bill Williams as valet, John Dunbar as clerk, and Soong Ling as barmaid.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,338

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The Edgar Wallace Mysteries 

There were 48 films in the British second-feature film series The Edgar Wallace Mysteries, produced at Merton Park Studios for Anglo-Amalgamated and released in cinemas between 1960 and 1965.

Crossroads to Crime (1960) and Seven Keys (1961) were not shot as part of the series but were later included. Urge to Kill (1960) may not originally have been intended as part of the series.

1. Urge to Kill (March 1960)
2. Clue of the Twisted Candle (September 1960)
3. The Malpas Mystery (October 1960)
4. Marriage of Convenience (November 1960)
5. The Man Who Was Nobody (December 1960)
6. Partners in Crime (February 1961)
7. The Clue of the New Pin (February 1961)
8. The Fourth Square (June 1961)
9. Man at the Carlton Tower (July 1961)
10. Clue of the Silver Key (August 1961)
11. Attempt to Kill (September 1961)
12. Man Detained (October 1961)
13. Never Back Losers (December 1961)
14. The Sinister Man (December 1961)
15. Backfire! (February 1962)
16. Candidate for Murder (February 1962)
17. Flat Two (February 1962)
18. The Share Out (February 1962)
19. Number Six (April 1962)
20. Time to Remember (July 1962)
21. Solo for Sparrow (September 1962)
22. Playback (September 1962)
23. Locker Sixty Nine (September 1962)
24. Death Trap (October 1962)
25. The Set Up (January 1963)
26. Incident at Midnight (January 1963)
27. The £20,000 Kiss (January 1963)
28. On the Run (February 1963)
29. Return to Sender (March 1963)
30. Ricochet (March 1963)
31. The Double (April 1963)
32. To Have and to Hold (July 1963)
33. The Partner (September 1963)
34. Accidental Death (November 1963)
35. Five to One (December 1963)
36. Downfall (January 1964)
37. The Verdict (February 1964)
38. We Shall See (April 1964)
39. The Rivals (May 1964)
40. Who Was Maddox? (June 1964)
41. Face of a Stranger (September 1964)
42. Act of Murder (September 1964)
43. Never Mention Murder (November 1964)
44. The Main Chance (November 1964)
45. Game for Three Losers (April 1965)
46. Change Partners (July 1965)
47. Strangler’s Web (August 1965)
48. Dead Man’s Chest (October 1965)