Blackmailed (1951)
Overview
A blackmailer is murdered, and those who witnessed the scene agree to keep quiet; the complication is that the scene is also witnessed by a young artist, a victim of blackmail as well. (BFI Website)
Cast
Mai Zetterling
Mrs. Carol Edwards
Fay Compton
Mrs. Christopher
Dirk Bogarde
Stephen Mundy
Robert Flemyng
Dr. Giles Freeman
Michael Gough
Maurice Edwards
James Robertson Justice
Mr. Sine
Joan Rice
Alma
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Lord Dearsley
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- Reviews
CinemaSerf
This is quite a cleverly conceived drama that does ask us whether, ever, two wrongs might actually make a right. It’s after “Mary” (Shirley Wright) is involved in a road accident that hospital almoner “Mrs. Christopher” (Fay Compton) is called in to comfort the injured woman and finds herself charged with delivering an envelope. Inadvertently, she walks in on the nasty “Sine” (James Robertson Justice) in the middle of blackmailing a young woman. A scuffle ensues and next thing, she, “Carol” (Mai Zetterling) and “Dr. Freeman” (Robert Flemying) have quite an headache. That only gets worse when “Munday” (Dirk Bogarde) walks in on this lurid scene then promptly scarpers. With a police investigation imminent, the folks try to go about their day-to-day business only to find a series of seemingly unrelated incidents gradually and somewhat nervously brings them all together and facing a tough decision. It’s quite a good idea, this, but the execution is all rather bitty. At times it comes across as an amalgam of other Bogarde films only here serendipity plays maybe just too much of a role as we build to a vaguely comedic, convenient, denouement. There’s a bit more of a substantial role here for Michael Gough as the bed-ridden husband “Maurice” which he delivers quite well, but there’s little chemistry between Zetterling and Flemying and Compton seemed content to settle for offering us a gentle, softly lit, impersonation of Dame May Whitty. It was lost for a long time, apparently, which is quite curious given it’s cast but not so much given it’s substance.
