I Watch Films: Lady In The Fog

 

Lady In The Fog (1952)

Heather McMara (Bernadette O’Farrell) enters a London pub, waiting for her brother, to discover American writer Phil O’Dell (Cesar Romero) attempting to recreate a drink from the war. McMara’s brother is killed by a car in the fog. The brother had claimed to have important and dangerous information so she is convinced it’s murder. With no evidence the police aren’t interested, and O’Dell’s flight is cancelled (he’s due to go and report on a revolution in South America) so he decides to investigate.

O’Dell heads to the nightclub the brother used to go to, where he encounters Peggy Maybrick (Lois Maxwell) the owner. From there he learns a hotel address, goes there, finds it ransacked then is knocked out by a man. Waking up he discovers a tape recording.

The brother was dating an actress, and had arranged a screentest with film producer Hampton. O’Dell tries to find out more from him but it seems a dead end. However then someone ransacks his room, and tries to run him down in a car. He still has no evidence for the police (in a recurring bit of comedy he keeps surprising the police inspector so he breaks his pipe) who are getting annoyed with him so decides to carry on.

The film continues in this way, O’Dell discovering a clue, having a brief moment of action, all in a light-hearted manner. And then some clues to very dark crimes, moments of real tension and O’Dell and McMara’s romance that almost manages to convince. My reasons for watching were mostly two of the leads famous for other work – Romero as the Joker in Batman and Maxwell as Moneypenny in James Bond. And they don’t disappoint, Romero keeping the tone light, Maxwell trying hard to be charming while hiding dark secrets.

Watch This: Charming 1950s crime thriller
Don’t Watch This: The plot is bizarrely complex, swings between very dark and very silly, and frankly makes no sense, the villains seeming to have little thought of what the end result is going to be