Paul Evans I love the fact that there is a wealth of unseen movies out there to discover, sometimes you unearth diamonds, sometimes you just find rubbish. Wanted for Murder is a worthy discovery, it begins very slowly, but opens up nicely, the real mystery being which planets some of the accents hail from, this era loved the terribly proper English accent, and the extreme working class alternative. I find the camera work ad filming very appealing, it somehow feels quite crisply put together,quite slick. Accents apart, it's very well acted, Eric Pittman is fantastic, brilliantly menacing, a huge on screen presence.. Roland Culver and Stanley Holloway are excellent, a great double act, with Holloway injecting a dash of humour. Some great cameos, Wilfred Hyde White and the lady purchasing a record, great fun. The audiences of the forties had a definite taste for mystery, and thank goodness for it. A gem, 8/10.

Spikeopath Wanted for Murder is directed by Lawrence Huntington and adapted to screenplay by Emeric Pressburger, Rodney Ackland, Barbara Everest and Maurice Cowan from the play by Terence De Marney and Percy Robinson. It stars Eric Portman, Dulcie Gray, Derek Farr, Roland Culver and Stanley Holloway. Music is by Mischa Spoliansky and cinematography by Mutz Greenbaum.Nifty little thriller noir this, basically it finds Portman as the sinister Victor James Colebrook, a man with murderous instincts born out by bad seed lineage in his family tree. Can intrepid Chief Inspector Conway (Culver) nail his man before he kills yet again? Imperative since Victor has latched onto Anne Fielding (Gray), and although he is in love with her, he doesn't know how long he can contain his blood lust.Thought to be influenced by a real life serial killer, Huntington's movie is very Hitchcockian in tone. Story unfolds by night in a London of dimly lighted foggy streets and dense shadowed parks, and by day it's the hustle and bustle of the city that provides a backdrop of false normalcy. As the tormented Victor goes about his way, leading his double life as a cunning member of society who dotes on his mother – and that of a strangler of women – the makers ensure the surroundings suit the persona.A chapter of the story set at a carnival pulses with unease, a visit to a wax museum really gets to the heart of the evil, a murder sequence that is off camera strikes all the right terrifying notes, and a quite brilliant passage that sees witnesses come face to face with the killer in Conway's office is superbly performed by all involved. Then there is the finale that plays out at night (naturally) at the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park. Wonderful!Portman (A Canterbury Tale/Dear Murderer) was a British treasure, an actor whose career begs for reappraisal by classic film fans. Here he is right on the money as the complex sociopath who detests what he has become and even dangles clues for the police to follow. Yet he also slips easily into society with a measured calmness that is rather chilling. Portman quite simply is excellent. As are Culver and Holloway as the sort of coppers Britain could do with having more of these days!With Pressburger as part of the writing team it's no surprise to find the script tight and the dialogue snappy, Huntington (The Upturned Glass) and Greenbaum (Night and the City) never miss the chance to accentuate the psychological tremors by way of smart visuals, and Spoliansky's music is devilishly spectral like. It probably could have been shorn of ten minutes and the Dulcie Gray/Derek Farr romance gets a little twee at times, but this is well worth checking out and deserves to be better known. 8/10

manuel-pestalozzi This is a truly memorable movie. Not for its story which is pretty pedestrian but for its treatment by the screen writers, the actresses and actors, its cinematography and its art direction. My first surprise came with the title credits. Emeric Pressburger participated in the screen writing. And this seems to be one of the rare cases in which the screen writing is better than the general plot. There are a great many interesting characters which are competently and nicely sketched. The actresses and actors grace the script with very good, heart felt and often funny performances down to the last bit part (and there are many of them). They portray ordinary people who just want to be decent - and ordinary. The movie is set in post war London and the number of sets and location shots is astounding considering the simplicity of the whole affair. The apartment of the villain is in a fine town house, and it looks like it was shot on location, so it must also be a feast for friends of architecture. Watching this movie is anything but a waste of time! Again and again I become enraptured by British films which were made during the period of Austerity (The Archers, Ealing Studio, Carol Reed etc.). I always feel that lack of funds was more than compensated by the love all those who participated felt for their art.

Alex da Silva Eric Portman (Viktor) is the grandson of a notorious hangman. His grandfather's sadistic, psychotic reputation as a killer plays heavily on Portman's psyche. Actually, it does more than that - it influences his behaviour. However, he is unable to change who he is. A serial killer is at large murdering women and goading the police. Can Roland Culver (Inspector Conway) and his team prevent the killer from striking again and again....? This film contains some dodgy accents, in particular, a very posh bus driver as played by Derek Farr (Jack) and a young Scottish woman, Jenny Laird (Jeannie), who comes from absolutely nowhere in Scotland. There are humorous moments eg, Stanley Holloway's portrayal of "Sgt Sullivan" and Gerard Kempinski as a waiter, alongside tense dramatic sections, eg, the murder of Jenny Laird (Jeannie) in the park. I found Barbara Everest as "Mrs Colebrooke" slightly weird b t it's a minor point in an otherwise convincing tale of a killer who is born to kill. We are left in no doubt as to who the killer is from the beginning and this adds to the tension throughout the film. I thought that the killer's fate was rather convenient - an easy way to end the film - but it's still a good film.