The Man in Black (1950)

★ 5.6 1h 18m IMDb

Thriller

A woman conspires to steal her stepdaughter's inheritance following the mysterious death of her millionaire husband.

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Cast

Betty Ann Davies as Bertha Clavering Died 1955 · London, England, UK Betty Ann Davies (24 December 1910 - 14 May 1955) was a British stage and film actress..

Sheila Burrell as Janice Died 2011 · Blackheath, London, England, UK

Sidney James as Henry Clavering / Hodson Died 1976 · Hillbrow, Johannesburg, Union of South Africa Sidney James (born Solomon Joel Cohen; May 8, 1913 – April 26, 1976) was a South African-born English-based actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and al...

Anthony Forwood as Victor Harrington Died 1988 · Weymouth, England, UK Anthony Forwood (born Ernest Lytton Forwood; 3 October 1915 – 18 May 1988) was an English actor. Description above from the Wikipedia article Anthony Forwood, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of co...

Valentine Dyall as Story Teller / Narrator Died 1985 · London, England, UK

Director Francis Searle

Cast Betty Ann Davies, Sheila Burrell, Sidney James, Anthony Forwood, Hazel Penwarden, Valentine Dyall, Courtney Hope, Mollie Palmer, Lawrence Baskcombe

John Chard 7/10 Jan 31, 2019

Oakfield Towers ... The Scene...

The Man in Black is directed by Francis Searle and Searle co-writes the play with John Gilling. It stars Betty Ann Davies, Sheila Burell, Sid James, Anthony Forwood and Mollie Palmer. Music is by Frank Spencer and Rupert Grayson and cinematography by Cedric Williams.

Out of Hammer Films, this adaptation from a radio series is a tight little "Gaslight" suspenser. Story basically entails a young lady recently bequeathed her father's inheritance, who is at the mercy of scheming family members intent on ensuring she doesn't get what's rightfully hers.

The core of the plot is quickly revealed to us, so there is no pretention as to this being a supernatural dark house spooker - which is on the cards given the splendid shadowy and creaky setting of the Oakfield Towers mansion.

Story moves through a number of pleasant surprises, murder and intrigue prominent, motives straight and sketchy depending on certain characters' involvements, and thankfully the final run in has some weighty surprise value as well.

It's all very correct in dialogue and a little camp in places, but it's clever in its telling and nicely performed by the cast. 6.5/10

CinemaSerf 5/10 Dec 27, 2022

It's interesting to see Sid James play a straight (albeit brief) role for change in this simple little crime thriller. He is a wealthy chap with a rather venal second wife and step-daughter. His obsession with mysticism leads, one evening, to a risky experiment and it all goes wrong... We have no absence of potential culprits as his new family try to drive his daughter out of her mind so they can inherit his fortune. Betty Ann Davies is good as the scheming the wife, with Sheila Burrell likewise as her ghastly, grasping, daughter all manipulating poor old "Joan" (Hazel Penwarden) in a decently paced mystery. Sadly the ending is writ a bit large from fairly early on, and that makes it all sag a bit - maybe Francis Searle could have tightened it up by a quarter of an hour? It's still an enjoyable watch, though - with a slightly more sophisticated script (that may owe something to it's BBC radio heritage). It is rarely shown nowadays, but is worth seeing through if you encounter it.