A woman thinks she is being followed by a hit-man. She wanders the streets in desperation only to land by chance at a café over the road from a pub where her husband and his business partner are about to entertain a client. Inside the café, the woman faints and, watched by another shadowy figure, is taken into the manager's office and out through the back door. The woman, the husband and the business partner return home by taxi but not long afterwards the hit-man forces his way in, kills the husband and claims the wife hired him, which she denies, and so wants his money for the job.
To cut a long story short (again, this film is barely longer than an hour), the woman (and the hit-man) are American. The other shadowy figure is also American as he turns up to see her after everything has blown over, only to reveal himself as the woman's first husband, who she is still technically married to. He has been blackmailing her to keep schtum about her bigamy. The woman DID hire the hit-man, but to kill her first, American husband. The chance meeting at the café where the woman fainted meant that the hit-man got the wrong husband...
You see? A clever little story. The only thing is that the film is awful. Both main leads and parachuted-in American Dan Duryea as the hitman and Canadian Patricia Owens as the woman are truly awful and complete misfits for the rest of the cast, if not cimematic history. Duryea, even though he was 55 at the time of the filming - looks at least 10 years older. (He actually died of cancer 4 years later.) He was known for this kind of part but found slim pickings in his later years. Owens, who apparently did a good line in distraught wives, displayed very little acting ability in this film. While she plays 'the quiet woman' for obvious reasons, she displays no depth of character at all, not even in the reveal at the end. The first husband is played by David Bauer who was born in Chicago and fled the anti-Communist hysteria of the US in the 50s. Usually reliable, he only gives a convincing portrayal of someone who, in roughly 10 years, has completely forgotten how to play an American. Even his ridiculously false five o'clock shadow doesn't save him from having no edge whatsoever. You can't really blame him, though, as he only has the last five minutes of the film to establish his character, and he is up against Owens' complete inability to connect.
The film otherwise is a weird mishmash of American and British that ruins the edgy storyline. The start with Duryea stalking Owens is pure American, spoilt by the fact that it is carried out on the hardly mean streets of suburban London. Production values (and budgets) are low. The court room scene where Duryea is committed to trial is evidently written by someone who has either no idea of how the British law and order system works or wasn't paid enough to do any research. Duryea, who has elected to defend himself because the film's budget couldn't run to another actor, is allowed to make a lengthy statement from the dock in which he spills all the beans from his side. Anything else lengthy in the court scene is provided by shots of the hit-man's very simple girlfriend weeping. Maybe it's to cover up the fact that Owens isn't even on the courtroom set most of the time. Most of the rest of the film is taken up with Owens being moody and contrary which, looking back, should make us suspicious of her actions... but doesn't. There is a compete lack of suspense which is only to be expected from the claim that the film is said to have been shot in ten days, edited in six!
The lack of suspense means we don't understand why Owens chooses to walk the streets of London stalked by the hit-man instead of finding somewhere familiar and safe. And the most ridiculous scene is where she returns home after the courtroom scene only for us to see the tape outline of her late husband's body still on the hall floor!
Director Frank Nesbitt only made two other films (one of those being 'Dulcima', which has always left me with a funny feeling, too) and, I'm afraid, it shows...