Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective (1981)

Accident-prone cop Cribbins is assigned to find a long-time criminal thought to have returned to the neighborhood. His investigations lead him to looking into a disappearance of a teenage girl 15 years before that has never properly pursued. He uncovers the true story, despite being beaten repeatedly by a host of hoodlums. Detailed story offers funnyman Cribbins a rare and mostly straight leading role. Lipman scores as a frisky local lass. This was just about the last directing job for veteran Val Guest and has a solid cast of British character actors.

Though it does have the odd comedic line or two, this is the only time I recall Bernard Cribbins ever trying to tackle something that required him to speak the word "pants" in anything like a sexual context. He plays a detective constable who is assigned a tough criminal case but soon finds himself embroiled in a fifteen year old cold one involving the disappearance of a young girl. His nickname is "Dangerous" and he spends much of the next two hours - at no small risk to himself - trying to piece together what did happen to that young girl (as well as trying to nail his official quarry too). Bill Maynard - again more noted for his comedy parts - works quite well as his pal "Mod" and there is an additional smattering of familiar faces across the quite enjoyable and characterful mystery adventure. It's a bit too long, maybe we could lose twenty minutes of establishment scenes at the top of the film, but this is quite a fun drama that I rather surprisingly enjoyed.