JohnHowardReid
Copyright 1956 by Marksman Films Ltd. Released through Columbia Pictures Corp. No New York opening. U.S. release: August 1957. U.K. release: 18 February 1957. Australian release: 26 September 1957. 8,654 feet. 96 minutes. NOTES: "Introducing" Elizabeth Seal, although she had in fact previously appeared in Radio Cab Murder (1954). Producer: Maxwell Setton. Copyright 1956 by Marksman Films Ltd. Released through Columbia Pictures Corp. No New York opening. U.S. release: August 1957. U.K. release: 18 February 1957. Australian release: 26 September 1957. 8,654 feet. 96 minutes. COMMENT: You'd think a movie with a cast like this would more than fill the average suburban cinema of a Friday night. Mills, Coburn, Farr were all super-popular players. Farr had even recently played a most successful season on the stage, opposite his actress wife, Muriel Pavlow. But when I saw the movie at my neighborhood Odeon, I was one of only three paying patrons in the theatre! It wasn't only that television had already started to take its big bite out of cinema attendances, but that audiences simply didn't take to Mills as either a policeman or a murder suspect. To most picturegoers, Mills was a serviceman - whether in the army, navy or air force didn't matter, so long as he was in uniform. Out of uniform, he was barely tolerated as a businessman or farmer, completely ignored as either a light romantic figure or comedy cut-up or a disturbed "little man" with serious emotional problems. Thus general audiences chose to ignore all of Mills' best performances. Instead he was "ideally" cast as the epitome of breezy officer types, all-right chaps, stiff upper-lip and all that. A grippingly fast-paced, mystery thriller, Town on Trial is an original screenplay by Ken Hughes and Robert Westerby, written in the classic tradition of credibly-hewn characters, realistic incident and a bobby-dazzler of an action climax. There are only four suspects, yet the writers keep us in fine suspense right up to the climactic revelation. And although the identity of the killer is cleverly concealed, the script plays fair
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John Guillermin has directed this fine script with verve, style and imagination. No doubt all the subjective camerawork is detailed in the script, but it's fascinatingly presented all the same. A large budget with lots of extras and location settings also helps.
The performances are all major league. From the tantalising glimpse of Magda Miller, through the high-spirited sexiness of Elizabeth Seal, to the nastily vicious (?) or helpfully sincere (?) Charles Coburn who brings all his magnificent charisma to bear on a difficult role which he brings off so superbly. Production credits are likewise absolutely first-rate. Photography, music, film editing and art direction are especially commendable.
MartinHafer
When "Town on Trial" begins, you hear the voice of the murderer before he commits the crime! You see him looking at pretty Molly at the country club...and you hear him saying how she has it coming because she's one of THOSE sort of girls! Well, Molly certainly was pretty and liked to show off her figure...and the sicko thought this meant he was entitled to kill her!!Police Superintendent Halloran (John Mills) is assigned to the case. And, unfortunately, it's not a quick and easy case to solve...and some of it is because the rich folks he questions sometimes have a strong sense of entitlement. In fact, the more he investigates, the more these folks put pressure on his superiors to take him off the case! What's to come of this?This is a very good film. Sure, the story is good but the reason I liked it was the very fine acting of Mills. He was a heck of a good actor and made even average material well above average. Well worth your time.
James Hitchcock
Although there were a number of British films noirs, few of these are well-known today. Robert Hamer, for example, is justly remembered for his blackly comic masterpiece "Kind Hearts and Coronets", but less so for his two great noirs, "It Always Rains on Sunday" and "The Long Memory". Carol Reed's celebrated trilogy of "Odd Man Out", "The Third Man" and "The Man Between" may be an exception, but it is notable that although these films were made by a British director none of them were actually set in mainland Britain."Town on Trial" is another British noir which has largely been forgotten. We normally associate film noir with the mean streets of American cities, often Los Angeles, and British examples tended to be set in working-class areas. "It Always Rains on Sunday", for example, was set in London's East End and "The Long Memory" in the back streets of Gravesend. Some later examples, such as "Tread Softly Stranger", also contained elements of kitchen-sink realism. This one, however, is set in a respectable Home Counties commuter town, Oakley Park. A young woman named Molly Stevens is found murdered and Superintendent Mike Halloran, a Scotland Yard detective, is sent to investigate.Halloran's problem is that he has too many suspects. Molly, a sexy good- time girl, had a long list of enemies, mostly men whom she has flirted with and then rejected, or women jealous of the attentions paid to her by their husbands or boyfriends. Three men, however, fall under particular suspicion, namely Peter Crowley, a former boyfriend of Molly, Mark Roper, a married man who was having an affair with Molly and was the father of her unborn child, and John Fenner, the sinister Canadian- born local doctor. (Charles Coburn was cast in the role, possibly because he had earlier played a sinister doctor in "King's Row").Despite the title, this is not a courtroom drama. The town is "on trial" in the sense that the investigations into the murder reveal some unpleasant secrets which the predominantly middle-class townspeople, who believe firmly in keeping up appearances and in not washing dirty laundry in public, would prefer to keep hidden. The prominent Dixon family try to hush up the wild behaviour of their daughter, even though she is not a suspect in the murder. Dr. Fenner is revealed to have left Canada under a cloud when a misdiagnosis led to a patient's death. The wealthy and outwardly respectable Roper, the secretary of the posh local tennis club of which Molly was also a member, has several skeletons in his cupboard, quite apart from his extramarital affair. He is heavily in debt and is revealed to have lied about his war record to cover up a dishonourable discharge for embezzlement.Adding to the complexity of the situation is a growing romance between Halloran and Elizabeth, a beautiful nurse who is also Fenner's niece- and who might also be lying to protect her uncle. Elizabeth is played by Barbara Bates, a former Hollywood starlet (today best remembered for her small but important role in "All about Eve") who was trying to revive her once-promising career in Britain. This sub-plot seems like an unnecessary distraction. As another reviewer has pointed out, John Mills was never at his best in romantic roles, particularly as he was 49 in 1957, nearly two decades older than Bates.Another weakness is that the killer's motives remain ambiguous. Even when his identity is revealed it is never made clear whether he killed Molly because of a personal grudge- he was one of her rejected lovers- or because of a fanatical religious Puritanism. (He goes on to kill another young woman who he considers to be acting in a sexually provocative manner).The film also, however, has its strengths. In his role as a detective, as opposed to his role as a lover, Mills's performance is a perfectly good one, and he receives good support from some of the other cast members, notably Derek Farr as the sleazy Roper. There is a brilliant cliff-hanging finale on the church steeple, a scene in which director John Guillermin clearly reveals the influence of Alfred Hitchcock, who also liked setting cliff-hangers on prominent buildings or structures, such as the Forth Bridge scene in "The 39 Steps". "Town on Trial" still holds interest today as an exposé of the dark underside of 1950s middle- class respectability. 7/10
