The Man Inside ** (1958, Jack Palance, Anita Ekberg, Nigel Patrick, Anthony Newley, Bonar Colleano) – Classic Movie Review 12,062

Director John Gilling’s 1958 British crime thriller film The Man Inside stars Jack Palance, Anita Ekberg, Nigel Patrick, Anthony Newley, and Bonar Colleano.

But, despite a really tremendous cast, it is only a mediocre, rather lifeless old adventure drama, with private detective Milo March (Jack Palance) tailing from New York across Europe jeweller’s clerk Sam Carter (Nigel Patrick), an English gem robber who steals a fortune in diamonds but kills a man. However, two crooks, Martin Lomer (Bonar Colleano) and Robert Stone (Gerard Heinz), are after the largest diamond in the stolen hoard. And Trudi Hall (Anita Ekberg) claims she is the diamond’s proper owner.

The leading men Palance, Patrick and Colleano make something of their roles, Newley is quite funny, the plot is serviceable and the globetrotting production is pretty, but the rest is pretty worthless. Bizarrely, Anthony Newley plays a comically lusty Spanish cabbie called Ernesto Garcia, Donald Pleasence plays an organ grinder, and Sidney James plays Franklin.

It is the film debut of John Moulder Brown, aged five.

It is Bonar Colleano’s last film before a fatal road smash, aged 34. Colleano died in 1958, when he crashed his Jaguar XK140 sports car in Birkenhead driving back from Liverpool’s New Shakespeare Theatre. Warwick Productions employed him in Zarak (1956), Interpol (1957), Fire Down Below (1957), No Time to Die (1958) and The Man Inside (1958).

Also in the cast are Josephine Brown, Gerard Heinz, Alec Mango, Anne Aubrey, Bill Shine, Joan Ingram, Naomi Chance, Maxwell Shaw, Mary Laura Wood, Angela White, Alfred Burke, Mark Baker, Alz Galliuer, Walter Gotell, Richard Golding, and John Moulder Brown.

The screenplay by Richard Maibaum, John Gilling and David Shaw is based on the novel by M E Chaber.

Producer Albert Broccoli later used writer Richard Maibaum on his Bond movies.

It is made by Warwick Film Productions, who had to postpone the October 1957 filming until April 1958 for cash flow after the box office disappointment of Fire Down Below.

The cast are Jack Palance as Milo March, Anita Ekberg as Trudie Hall, Nigel Patrick as Sam Carter, Anthony Newley as Ernesto Garcia, Bonar Colleano as Martin Lomer, Sean Kelly as Rizzio, Sidney James as Franklin, Donald Pleasence as organ grinder, Eric Pohlmann as Manuel Tristao, Josephine Brown as Mrs. Frazur, Gerard Heinz as Robert Stone, Alec Mango as Lopez, Alfred Burke as Mr Pritchard, Bill Shine as English Husband, Naomi Chance as Jane Leighton, Walter Gotell as Profuno, Anne Aubrey, Joan Ingram, Maxwell Shaw, Mary Laura Wood, Angela White, Mark Baker, Alz Galliuer, Richard Golding, and John Moulder Brown.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,062

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