I found this to be a reasonably entertaining second feature..It is really a who did my do it rather than a whodunit. Alan Baxter is the parachuted in American lead.Rather interesting to see that he arrives at Victoria on the Golden Arrow London to Paris train.The train used to go on to the ferry at Dover and then go back on the rails at Calais. The problem with Baxter is that he really isn't quite the star needs for the role.The voice over narration is sort of a combination of Phillip Marloweand Sam Spade.However that said it still keeps you guessing and is undeserving of its current low rating. Probably this is due to Baxters rather low key performance and his lack of empathy with his leading lady.
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malcolmgsw9 August 2015
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richardchatten23 July 2021A corrective to anyone who thinks fifties Britain was perennially wet and overcast is this dour early Guido Coen quickie obviously shot during a hot, dry summer in those far off days when everybody smoked, phones had button 'A's and telephone exchanges still had human operators.
Like Fred MacMurray in 'Double Indemnity' crew-cut American import Alan Baxter narrates how he was ensnared by dragon lady Barbara Shelley (in arched eyebrows, painted nails and a polka-dot blouse) with a rich husband of more use to her dead than alive.
Good-looking but garrulous, it feels much longer than it's running time of only 66 minutes. -
THE END OF THE LINE is a typical British thriller from prolific director Charles Saunders. The lead is played by a wooden American import, Alan Baxter, whose low key portrayal leaves a sizable hole at the centre of the proceedings and make it a movie difficult to enjoy at times. Baxter is too old and too disinterested in the material to make his protagonist role work here.
It's a pity, because the film's mysterious plot does have merit. Baxter arrives in London and tries to hook up with his wife, who is busy leading him into a sinister murder scheme. Barbara Shelley is the best thing about this film as the ravishing femme fatale; her performance is outstanding and it's a shame that Baxter simply looks bored in her company. Ferdy Mayne plays in support in a typical role for the actor. The whole film feels a bit sluggish and the trappings are too familiar for it to make much an impact. With plenty of added suspense it might just have worked. -
hwg1957-102-26570413 January 2019An American writer Mike Selby comes to London to help write a play and gets involved with a former flame which eventually leads to robbery, blackmail and murder. The film is a bit dull mainly due to imported Alan Baxter who is the leading man but ever so uninteresting and his sub-Chandleresque voiceover is boring. That two of the female characters Liliane and Ann are or have been attracted to him is quite hilarious which really spoils the believability of the narrative.
Liliane is played by the beautiful Barbara Shelley who shines as always and good support is given by the reliable Jennifer Jayne, Ferdy Mayne and Harry Towb. Geoffrey Hibbert is good as the sleazy private detective Perrin. The location photography is nice and Edwin Astley provides suitable music. With a less bland leading man and a faster pace this would have been much better.
But any film with Barbara Shelley is worth seeing. -
kalbimassey10 August 2022This recently viewed feature is almost as bland as the washed out, whiter shade of pale print in which it appeared.
Everyone seems to be pulling out all the stops to give it the noir treatment: Alan Baxter is the obligatory American lead, retrospectively relating his ill fated encounters with siren Barbara Shelley, being needled by the sound of a familiar record, but still capable of a few cool colloquialisms, "The smart little number behind the desk," being a case in point. William Talman lookalike, Geoffrey Hibbert appears as a smarmy shady private dick. An unexpected twist creates faint echoes of Double Indemnity and it's all overlaid with a consciously trendy jazz score.
However, a pervading, quintessential Englishness drains the movie of any real grit or cutting edge. Much of the action takes place around leafy, affluent Marlow, with visits to the Windsor Lad pub and it's promo for Courage Ales. The then protracted process of making a phone call via the operator is conducted with decorum and dignity. Everything is so respectable, that even the chase occurs on attractive, rambling rural roads - Baxter's hot pursuit thwarted by a tractor hauling a cart loaded with hay blocking his path. All that's missing is the local yokel, with straw dangling from his lips observing from a nearby gate.
It is all fairly entertaining, but in an inescapably slight and superficial way. 'The End of the Line' manages to avoid hitting the buffers, but in spite of the rustic settings doesn't exactly pull up any trees either! -
mls41824 April 2023This is just bad - and really low budget. The cheap, undersized sets make it look as though they filmed it in a private residence.
The lead actor is so wooden, so flat, so passionless you almost laugh at his every line.
Barbara Shelley is priceless. Every outfit, ever pose and every camera angle is chosen to accentuate and highlight her big beaudacious derrierre. It isn't the elephant in the room, it is the main feature.
This is free on YouTube so it is worth seeing, just for laughs.
The writing, acting, sets, dialogue doesn't seem so awful if you watch it as a comedy and not a tawdry drama. -
new_market4123 January 2011Like a good number of British 'B' films made during the 1950s, this one offers a lead role for an imported American actor whose career had seen better days. In this instance Alan Baxter plays Mike Selby, a writer brought to England to give an American slant on a forthcoming play. The producer's daughter (Jennifer Jayne) finds him accommodation in a country hotel but this proves to be fateful. There he sees his former girlfriend Lilaine (Barbara Shelley) who is now married to Crawford, the hotel owner. She had originally run out on Mike to find someone with money but is now bored and apparently wants to rekindle their romance. After some initial resistance, Mike succumbs to her charms and is eventually persuaded to steal the jewellery that Crawford fences as a lucrative sideline. She concocts an elaborate alibi for him but things start to go wrong when Mike believes he has killed Crawford while stealing the jewels. Then he receives blackmail threats but who is blackmailing Mike, was Crawford really dead and what are Lilaine's real motives?
I was quite entertained by this second feature film which moves along nicely and throws in some twists along the way. However the performances of the two leads could not be more diverse. Alan Baxter seemed wooden and uneasy throughout whereas Barbara Shelley is cool and sexy. If fact her delivery at times reminded me of the young Lauren Bacall but sadly Baxter was no Humphrey Bogart. If possible, catch this film if only to see Barbara Shelley – she looks stunning. -
boblipton25 January 2023Alan Baxter is a writer in London to punch up a play for producer Charles Clay. He settles in a hotel in the suburbs, where he discovers Barbara Shelley. She was a girlfriend who walked out on him with his last hundred dollars. Now she's married to Arthur Gomez, who owns the hotel, a club in London, and runs a fencing operation. Baxter and Miss Shelley work up a scheme to rob Gomez' safe in the club with an ironclad alibi. But their plan goes awry.
Baxter is an immobile drip in the movie, who offers a voice-over commentary throughout the movie in a nasal, creaking voice. Miss Shelley is alluring, and the whole thing is shot cheaply by director Charles Saunders, resulting in a watchable, if mediocre film. -
jamesraeburn200328 February 2018An American writer called Mike Selby (Alan Baxter) arrives in London to rewrite a play for producer Henry Bruce (Charles Clay). Bruce's daughter,Ann (Jennifer Jayne), checks him into a country hotel run by nightclub owner John Crawford (Arthur Gomez), which proves to be a bad idea since she is falling in love with him and Crawford's wife, the glamoress but manipulative Liliane (Barbara Shelley), is an old flame of Selby's. It isn't long before she starts leading him to believe that she still loves him in order to manipulate him into breaking into her husband's nightclub in Soho to steal the priceless jewelry from his safe. She arranges what seems to be the perfect alibi for him, but after he goes through with it - coshing Crawford in the process and believing he's killed him - someone sneaks into the club and shoots him dead with Selby's own revolver. Naturally, he becomes the police's prime suspect since, apart from his own firearm being used, the people at the hotel have noticed that there was something going on between Liliane and Selby and that her husband was furious about it. Now that she has got her own way, Liliane demands that Selby hands over the jewels and tells him to stay away from her for fear of rousing suspicion. However, things are complicated by the appearance of a private eye called Max Perrin who was hired by Crawford to keep an eye on them. He had followed Selby to the club and decides to try his hand at a little blackmail. Selby goes to Ann for help to raise the money, but she has figured out what has happened and tells him that Liliane is involved with other men besides him. Selby decides to go to the police and visits Perrin who admits to seeing him at the club, but is certain that he heard no gunshot fired meaning that somebody else committed the murder. But, Liliane is lying in wait for Perrin and runs him down with her car. She then flees to the hotel where her lover is waiting and they plan to get the jewels and escape from the country. But, who is Liliane's lover and will their plot come unstuck?
British b-pic crime drama that does not achieve its American film noir ambitions due to indifferent leading performances from Baxter and Shelley who fail to convey the emotions and passions that a couple in their predicament would show. In any case they are not allowed sufficient scope for that in Paul Erickson's screenplay which, otherwise, is pretty good. The rural setting in a Home Counties hotel does not help matters either and Walter Harvey's b/w cinematography is unusually flat by his standards as anybody who has seen the way he effortlessly immitated the style of film noir in early British B's such as The House Across The Lake and Five Days will probably concur. Nevertheless, he beautifully captures some authentic London locations such as the Golden Arrow arriving at Victoria Station and Theatreland in the West End.
Leaving all that aside though, the film remains very likeable and is directed at a fair lick by that reliable and prolific second feature director Charles Saunders. Erickson's screenplay, apart from the poor character development of Baxter and Shelley's roles, is well plotted and the story holds our interest throughout. We are never quite sure who the femme fatale's secret lover is. We are invited to think that it could be her late husband's former club manager Charles Edwards (Ferdy Mayne) whom he sacked accusing him of cooking the books. But, the real reason was because he thought he was carrying on with his wife. Then, later, when Edwards is questioned by the police, we find out that he has a nagging mother who provides him with an alibi saying that he was at home at the time of the murder. But, after the police have gone, she dresses him down like a child saying "Charles, it doesn't pay to go upsetting people." "How can it possibly be him?", we think, since is it likely that a girl like that would go for a guy who is brow beaten by his mother? Or, could it be the private eye Perrin since he had the opportunity to have stolen Selby's gun and entered the club and murdered Crawford after Selby had gone?
The acting honours in the film go to Jennifer Jayne who rescues the film from losing any emotional element at all as a result of the flat leading performances. It is really quite incredible how she does that in one little scene where Selby is carried away on a stretcher after a bullet from his gun fired by Liliane found its mark and it is how she interacts with him that saves the day here. -
daoldiges16 March 2023The End of the Line is a British 'B' film from 1957 and involves an American writer staying in England while he finishes his work but his experience there ends up being a lot more than he had expected. The story is fairly basic, with only a minor twist toward the last third of the film, but otherwise the script isn't all that memorable. As for the performances, Alan Baxter is quite underwhelming as the lead, although I don't hold it against him and feel he was simply miscast. The remainder of the cast are serviceable. The look of the film was fine, although some of the interiors were overlit. Overall a very average film.
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andyrobert18 October 2021I thought that this was a neat, well-crafted thriller with a few surprising little twists here and there.
Good performances by Barbera Shelley, who sadly died of COVID 19 earlier this year; and Jennifer Jayne, who can be seen alongside Conrad Phillips in The Adventures of William Tell, which is being rerun on Talking Pictures at the moment, on a Monday morning at 09:30; and Geoffrey Hibbert, who died in 1969 at the young age of 42. Jennifer Jayne is also no longer with us, having died in 2006 at the age of 74. All three actors are sadly missed for the great contribution that they made to British Television and Film.
The only thing that intrigued me about this film was the narration by Alan Baxter, who played the lead. Why was he referring to himself by the personal pronoun, "you", as if he was talking to someone else? -
adrianovasconcelos25 February 2023Alan Baxter never amounted to much of an actor, and by 1957 he was increasingly involved in B and TV productions. In THE END OF THE LINE, he is plainly too old, dumpy and unfit to credibly interest female beauties of the caliber of Barbara Shelley and Jennifer Jayne, and that is apparent from the outset. Plus he is too wooden to convey any real emotional dilemma over the killing of a man he just planned to rob.
BIG minus there.
Charles Saunders does a passable job of directing, making competent use of a predictable screenplay whose best feature is a voiceover that comes in fits and starts and appears to be Selby (played by Baxter) ruminating over his downright avoidable decisions that inevitably lead him to crime.
Barbara Shelley has the plum role as the scheming femme fatale with strings pulled by subtle villain Ferdy Mayne, and the screen comes alive when those two are on it.
Photography is strictly standard.
Not a bad watch if you have 62' to spare. -
CinemaSerf12 February 2023Alan Baxter or a statue or Alan Baxter? Which would you choose? Which did Charles Saunders actually pick for this rather silly and weak crime drama. He is "Selby" a writer sent over from the US to London to help promote a play being staged by "Bruce" (Charles Clay). As luck would have it, his remote hotel is owned by "Crawford" (Arthur Gomez) and guess what - that man's wife also happens to be an ex-girfriend of "Selby" who absconded with his last few bucks years earlier. She, "Liliane" (Barbara Shelley) and he quickly concoct a plan that will see them rob her wealthy husband and abscond with his collection of expensive jewels. Of course it all goes wrong - and soon poor old "Shelby" is wanted by the police for murder - but frankly, the hugely far-fetched plot had long since lost any lustre by the time we get to this stage. There is no chemistry at all to be had on screen and the writing and pace of the drama are pedestrian and sluggish as the characterisations trip over themselves to keep us guessing who anyone can trust and who is, ultimately, driving the game. It does feature some nice photography of late 1950s London, but that's hardly a reason to watch. Sorry - it's just dull.
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rob-82-30276316 June 2011American author Mike Selby (imported American actor Alan Baxter)living in London gets involved former girlfriend Lilaine (Barbara Shelley) now married to underworld jewel fence Crawford. The trouble begins when Lilaine coerces Selby into robbing her husband. He pulls the job off admirably, but shortly afterwards, the disposable husband, Crawford, ends up dead. To make it worse, a blackmailer begins threatening to tell the authorities that Selby killed the victim. Not willing to take the extortion lying down, he heads for the police to turn himself in only to cross paths with the true killer. Entertaining second feature with Barbara Shelley as cool and sexy as they come. If fact her delivery at times reminded me of a young Lauren Bacall but sadly Baxter is no Humphrey Bogart. If possible, catch this film if only to see Shelley – she looks stunning. Directed by Charles Saunders (JUNGLE STREET, THE GENTLE TRAP, KILL HER GENTLY, BEHIND THE HEADLINES, NAKED FURY, MEET MR. CALLAGHAN, A TIME TO KILL, THE END OF THE LINE).