Short but effective suspense thriller shot on England's south-east coast. Although we know the bad guy from the start, the suspense is nevertheless maintained until the final shoot out on the rifle ranges which provide an unusual setting. Accents & dialogues typical of 50s England. Definitely worth viewing !
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nicholas.rhodes26 October 2000
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howardmorley31 December 2011I noticed the weighted average user rating on IMDb.com for this film was only 5.6 and mainly voted for by males/females aged 45+.I thought it a cracking murder mystery and watching it tonight on YouTube.com and I voted 7/10.I had just started infants school when this was filmed in 1951 (I am now 65) but was attracted to it by seeing Edward Underdown in the cast list and seeing it was a wholly British film.The afore mentioned actor (1908-1989) played "Harry Chelm" in the cult John Huston 1953 film "Beat The Devil" playing the husband of my personal sex goddess film favourite, the late Jennifer Jones.
Like another reviewer I enjoyed seeing England as I remember it in my childhood.We too holidayed in Kent in the late 1940s/early 1950s.I particularly enjoyed seeing the almost complete absence of private cars and how one could park almost anywhere without seeing those wretched double yellow lines/no parking/"resident parking only" signs we see today.Maxwell Reed seems to be a favourite of the few reviewers above and I too have the DVD of him in "The Clouded Yellow" (1951) starring another of my raven haired favourite film actresses, the late Jean Simmons.
I was intrigued by the user comment that Edward Underdown (1908-1989) was much older than Natasha Parry who plays "the love interest" and indeed she is apparently still with us being born in 1930 and so was only 21 when this was filmed, while Edward was 43 during filming a sizable age difference.You rarely see detectives kissing the heroine on films of this age but Edward made a wry comment that "little detectives have to be born sometimes"! -
morrison-dylan-fan10 May 2017After watching a trio of titles,I began talking to someone on a Fistful of Leone about British Film Noir,which led to me checking various lists. Catching a glimpse of her in the easy-going British Comedy Operation Bullshine,I realised that my dad had recently picked up a rare Barbara Murray Noir,which led to me meeting the dark man.
View on the film:
Encouraging Lester to not focus on the "strange" events recently taking placing around her, Barbara Murray gives a charming,Diva- style performance as actress Carol Burns,whilst future Dr.Who William Hartnell gives the title a good dose of gruffness as a Superintendent. Lingering in the shadows, Maxwell Reed gives a menacing performance as The Dark Man,who pulls the raw nerves of Natasha Parry's fraught Lester.
Mostly keeping The Dark Man in long shadows,writer/director Jeffrey Dell & cinematographer Eric Cross undermine their attempt to create a mysterious mood by openly showing his face for the whole double murder. Shot on location along the south coast of England,Dell releases a superb,crisp Film Noir atmosphere,where the camera pans across an entire beach,and spots The Dark Man looking over Lester's shoulder. Shading corner of the sets in Film Noir low-lighting for The Dark Man to hide in,Dell cleverly uses real buildings at the location to give a depth of field to the Film Noir paranoia,with the lights from a lighthouse being cast across the sands and lining it in ultra- stylised black and white patterns,as The Dark Man loses his shadow. -
malcolmgsw9 April 2018Despite a rather contrived and unlikely romantic interest between the leads this is a tense and exciting crime story.Particular?y when the killer stalks the witness to his murders.A particularly scene is when he finds her flat takes all the lights out,then tries to fake her suicide.Some very effective cinematography here and in the climactic scenes on the ranges.
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Stevieboy66624 February 2018A young actress happens to witness a ruthless criminal commit a second murder, putting her own life in danger. Filmed in England on the south-east coast it is very much a film of the time - everybody speaks with a stiff upper lip and everybody smokes, even when in the back of an ambulance! It's not exactly Hitchcock but does have some effective moments of suspense, plus it also makes good use of outdoor locations. Also notable for starring William Hartnell, who went on to become the first Dr Who.
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richardchatten6 July 2019A frequently incoherent but extremely well photographed drama in which tall dark Maxwell Reed, having demonstrated how ruthless a killer he is despatching his first two victims then makes a complete pig's ear of silencing Natasha Parry, who happened to be cycling past just after the second murder.
Many of the plot contrivances (including a very perfunctorily engineered romance between Miss Parry and the rather elderly looking detective played by Edward Underdown) and character vignettes by the likes of Barbara Murray and William Hartnell seem thrown in just as filler between cameraman Eric Cross's vivid noirish night scenes and enterprising use of the South Coast in bright sunshine to surprisingly sinister effect that anticipates 'And Soon the Darkness' nearly twenty years later. -
Leofwine_draca17 February 2018THE DARK MAN is an action-focused British crime thriller of 1951 which opens with a frightening sequence in which the sinister Maxwell Reed (THE CLOUDED YELLOW) commits a double murder. His crimes are witnessed by an innocent young actress who is forced to go under police protection in case he comes after her. What follows is a pared-down battle of wits between the vengeful murderer and the detective hired to look after the actress. The film is light on plot and mystery but heavy on near-death scrapes and chases as hero and villain attempt to outwit each other. Star power is at a low wattage here although there's a nicely irascible turn from William Hartnell as the police superior. The climax on the army ranges is very well handled.
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CinemaSerf10 February 2023Poor old "Molly" (Natasha Parry) has the misfortune to witness the eponymous character commit double murder. He knows she knows, and she knows he knows that she does, and so now he (Maxwell Reed) is determined to shut her up before she can tell pursuing police inspector "Vine" (Edward Underdown) and he faces the gallows. There's no real jeopardy here - we all know who did what to whom, but it's still quite an engaging little cat and mouse thriller that, though it could certainly do with losing twenty minutes or so, has a strong supporting cast and some nice photography of England's Sussex coast as the adventure hots up to an exciting, if predictable, denouement. The acting and script are all pretty generic, but it's still worth a watch.
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boblipton22 November 2019Actress Natasha Parry is bicycling on the road when she hears a couple of shots, and sees a dark man emerge from the woods to stand by a standing auto. She thinks nothing of it, but in the dressing room that night, her fellow actress tells her the police are looking for witnesses. Miss Parry says she saw nothing useful, but her friend points out that it's always useful for an actress to get her name in the papers. Miss Parry reports the very little she knows to the police, and thinks that will be the end of it... until Superintendent of Police William Hartnell sees the item. With the unknown man having committed two murders, he thinks she's in for it, so he sends down Detective Inspector Edward Underdown to guard her, and possibly catch the dark man before he can kill her.
It's a handsomely shot movie, directed and written by Jeffrey Dell, with an intelligently plausible arc of action that ends in a chase across the seashore in the darkling. It's photographed in long takes by Eric Cross; the lengthening shadows convert a taut policier into a shadowy noir at the end. -
johnshephard-8368225 October 2019Other viewers of this would-be thriller seem unconcerned by the brainless illogicality of much of the plot. Heroine Molly (Natasha Parry) inadvertently glimpses villain (unnamed, played by Maxwell Reed) just after he has shot dead a taxi driver. She's too far away to recognise him again (and vice versa, presumably) but the police naturally appeal for this mystery girl to come forward. Somehow (I missed exactly how) the villain knows how to trace her from details released by the press, and thus the plot is set in motion: the police must giver her round-the-clock protection, whilst Reed must try to kill her. Unfortunately, neither are very good at their tasks: 'round-the-clock' protection becomes 'some-of-the clock', and Reed traps her alone in her flat. All he now has to do is to callously kill her, as with his previous victims, but - as with so many such cheapo films of the genre - he decides instead to leave her alone with the gas on, suggesting suicide. Why? - so that she survives, and the story can continue - beyond that it makes no sense for a ruthless killer to try to pretend that his victim has not been ruthlessly killed. (And he'll never be caught anyway, because he has cunningly shaved off his moustache, changing his appearance entirely.) Once he has turned the gas on, Molly's phone rings, so what doe he do? He answers it - of course he does, because he's an idiot. The detective (uncharismatic, twenty years too old to be the love interest, Edward Underwood) assigned to protect Molly gives her explicit instructions from the start: 'Don't go out alone, you're not safe,' which she interprets as permission to seek out the remotest bit of beach she can find for a spot of solitary sunbathing. A man in a suit appears to follow her, and sits fifty metres away - is it the killer? we can't tell. It's either a man in a suit having a walk in the middle of nowhere (as any man in a suit might do) or, more likely, it's the murderer, practising how not to kill someone. It all ends at Dungeness, where, despite the army on shooting practice, a temporary hostage situation, a lighthouse, and one of those shoot-outs in which each gunman wastes bullets with shots that can't possibly hit their target, there is absolutely zero tension or suspense whatsoever. Eventually, the killer gets shot. and puts all out of our misery. A bog-standard cast under-uses the ever-reliable William Hartnell, the script gives Sam Kydd precisely one line, and makes poor Molly fall in love, on page two, with a policeman who could be her boring uncle, who she usually only has to put up with at Christmas. Four stars for the scenes of Hastings and its neighbouring areas.
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shaggydoo14 October 2005This was the first video i bought to go with my new video player about a decade ago. Having spent a part of my childhood in the area where it was filmed it was fun to spot the locations, the heroine getting on the bus to go to the beach at what looks like Hastings only to get off near the Romney marshes, which is some way to go for a quick bit of sunbathing. The story of the criminal classes up to no good and an innocent bystander in danger has been told many times before,and since. Maxwell Reed as the moody Dark Man is worth the price of the video alone, William Hartnell ( future Dr who)always watchable. But the main reason is seeing the final scenes at the "pre-nuclear" Dungeness coastline. The only negative is with the UK video release which has part of the story missing, I assume this is a copy of the US release which was shorter.
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mb014f290824 January 2008I wanted to see 'The Dark Man'for a while mainly because of Maxwell Reed; i seem lately to have watched him in a few of his 'Clouded Yellow'/'Night Beat'/'Dear Murderer'/'Square Ring'. I got a copy of Dark Man off ebay finally.It is a short 'B' film, however it is well done for its style, punchy and effective. Unfortunately, i think the shortened US version is the one doing the rounds, not the longer UK version.I'd be interested in seeing the original longer release. A very young Natasha Parry is the leading lady and does the job very nicely, though the age difference between her and Edward Underdown is a bit too great for easy belief. Maxwell Reed is the title's otherwise unnamed 'Dark Man' and he fits the role well both in his looks and behaviour. He brings an edgy presence to the film, the dark side of Underdown's whiter than white policeman. The 2 men have a passing physical resemblance as well. There is interesting location filming down on the coast and a very unusual finale on the shooting range. The way Maxwell Reed stalks Natasha Parry, building her fear, is effective and realistic; a simple beach scene has dark undertones. The director also writer Jeffrey Dell didn't helm many projects, a pity based on this effort.
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ronevickers15 February 2008This is a sharply scripted, tense thriller which has some excellent moments of atmospheric foreboding, and which benefits from the bleak landscape of Kent. The photography is especially striking and a completely menacing performance by Maxwell Reed, as the Dark Man of the title, lends great weight to the overall feel of the film. Reed was unsurpassed in this type of role, and he carries the film along superbly. There are some excellent scenes, with the climax to the film being particularly memorable, and in many ways evocative of the climax to the John Mills film "The Long Memory" This fine film can be recommended without reservation.
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robinvaughan-566916 November 2020Of course this film is full of holes . Why didnt the Dark Man just hail a taxi ? Why did he throw the key away so near his first crime ? Why did he act suspiciously , and gruffly to the taxi driver ? How did he get back to town ? Why didnt he just clear off , to London or the Northwest and stay in hotels there if he didnt want to be recognised by Molly ? Why did he he hang around the cafe and make himself seen ? Why did he go to a place where Molly was if he didnt want to be recognised ? Why not kill Molly after his second murder , rather than hang around and try killing her later? Even after these plot holes , and you could probably see more , this is a great film . Great films like The Maltese Falcon and The Ladykillers have huge plotholes but because they are so entertaining you forget or ignore them while you sink back and enjoy the atmosphere of these classics . This film you'd love .
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voicebox-37 February 2019A terrific British B movie of the period! One of the filming locations listed is Camber Sands, but the denouement takes place at Dungeness where the Lighthouse and the Railway Station of the Hythe/Romney and Dymchurch Narrow Gauge Railway feature strongly - the line swings around the Dungeness terminus and can be seen quite clearly.
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It is a rather simple story, a rather usual commonplace thriller with a murderer desperately trying to get away and to kill his only witness, getting the more hopelessly lost the harder he tries. He is no character, just a desperate cold-blooded murderer, and the others are not much of characters either. What makes the film interesting is the impressive cinematography with many scenes that would suggest some Hitchcock influence, and the finale, with the army called out to chase the murderer, is a typical Hitchcock kind of scenery. Edward Underdown as the leading police officer on the hunt is a bit too good-looking for a policeman, but the story is spiced to some interest when he falls in love with the girl in danger whom he is supposed to watch and keep out of danger, which he nevertheless fails in several times. The theatre scenes and the two scenes where she is taking it easy having tea at a bar, and the scene on the beach, where on both locations she is being watched by the murderer waiting for her in lurking menace, are quite intriguing. The film is well made on a well written story, although the story is quite ordinary for a thriller. The music is also very apt.