Confused, and utterly ridiculous, murder mystery set during a day at the seaside. Jim Medway (the charmless Derek Farr) arrives on the mail train at three thirty in the morning and decides it's a good time to visit his estranged wife, who lives in an unfeasibly inaccessible cottage, approached via a life-threatening clifftop walk. The wife is later found dead, and Jim decides to frame local villain Charlie Durham (William Hartnell), although claiming to have killed her himself. Thereafter, the plot thinnens, making absolutely no sense, and characterised by contradictions and inconsistencies, conversations based on information that characters have no way of knowing, monumentally daft dialogue, and the obligatory unlikely romance between Jim and total stranger Anne Corday, who talks like the speaking clock. One sample exchange, between two coppers discussing the murder scene, is typical of the banal script:
'Can you hear the clock chime from outside?' 'If the door's open, yes sir.' 'Someone must have opened the door then.' 'Yes, to go in, I suppose.' 'Or to go out?'
Priceless. The film is littered with pointless fringe characters - carboard cut-out chirpy cockneys on a day trip, a man in a suit and a bowler hat carrying a toy sailing boat, and a couple of unlikely fortune tellers, all wasting the talents of Kathleen Harrison, Esma Cannon and others. Then there's Peter Lorre, playing an incompetent killer with some unclear role in events, who finally confesses to the murder, which was actually a suicide, but is then accused of a different murder (without any apparent evidence, other than the fact that just about every suspect in the case was on that clifftop at four in the morning). Lorre escapes through a window, chased by Hartnell across the roof, and falls to his death.
So, why did all this happen? Why does Jim visit his wife at four in the morning? Why was Charlie leaving her cottage when Jim arrives? Why has she committed suicide? What was Peter Lorre doing nearby? Who was the other murder victim, and why was he killed? Why does everyone confess to a murder that was a suicide? How does the police inspector always seem to know where everyone is at any time? How does Lorre know that Jim and Anne will be swimming at a particular time, when they have made a spur of the moment decision? Why does anything happen the way the way it does? I've no idea; it's a preposterous ragbag of incoherent events, with some nostalgic south coast scenery.
'Can you hear the clock chime from outside?' 'If the door's open, yes sir.' 'Someone must have opened the door then.' 'Yes, to go in, I suppose.' 'Or to go out?'
Priceless. The film is littered with pointless fringe characters - carboard cut-out chirpy cockneys on a day trip, a man in a suit and a bowler hat carrying a toy sailing boat, and a couple of unlikely fortune tellers, all wasting the talents of Kathleen Harrison, Esma Cannon and others. Then there's Peter Lorre, playing an incompetent killer with some unclear role in events, who finally confesses to the murder, which was actually a suicide, but is then accused of a different murder (without any apparent evidence, other than the fact that just about every suspect in the case was on that clifftop at four in the morning). Lorre escapes through a window, chased by Hartnell across the roof, and falls to his death.
So, why did all this happen? Why does Jim visit his wife at four in the morning? Why was Charlie leaving her cottage when Jim arrives? Why has she committed suicide? What was Peter Lorre doing nearby? Who was the other murder victim, and why was he killed? Why does everyone confess to a murder that was a suicide? How does the police inspector always seem to know where everyone is at any time? How does Lorre know that Jim and Anne will be swimming at a particular time, when they have made a spur of the moment decision? Why does anything happen the way the way it does? I've no idea; it's a preposterous ragbag of incoherent events, with some nostalgic south coast scenery.