One Jump Ahead (1955)

The Worst Film Ever

Sadly Over-hyped

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I do remember Paul Carpenter,star of this film.A Showbiz football team were playing a charity match at Finchley F C on a Sunday.Carpenter was giving a commentary over the rabbit till the residents complained and he was silenced.Here he stars in a typical fifties crime film.With his American accent he was a cheap substitute for the usual fading American star.The film starts quite well but runs out of ideas early on,particularly with his romantic entanglements.The only other point of interest is the appearance of ex world champion boxer Freddie Mills.Quite apart from his death in mysterious circumstances it is also believed that he was a serial murderer.

Paul Carpenter the Canadian actor who died early aged 42, appears here with another actor and ex-boxer who died early Freddy Mills, in another investigative role for his screen persona of Paul Banner, see also Behind the Headlines 1956.Whereas he is a reporter on The Daily Comet in One Jump Ahead, in the former film he is running his own news agency.Other reviewers have already explained the plot so I will confine myself to other matters.Yes it was a mystery how Freddy Mills came to die with a shotgun by his side in a turning off Oxford Street in 1965 - a bigger mystery than this film!Was it suicide or a gangland killing?The cheeky schoolboy who appears at the beginning and barely escapes with his life, I remember seeing doing commercials on t.v. in the 1950s for Rowntrees Fruit Gums.As in Behind the Headlines with Hazel Court, Paul has a faithful and helpful British girlfriend who puts up with the rigours of his job.It was an adequate length of time approx 60 plus or so and would have constituted a B film back in the 1950s.It was an interesting enough film and I enjoyed seeing some old 1950s actors in British cast films again.I rated it 6/10.

While most of the cast of this film are now deceased, Paul Carpenter and Freddie Mills died shortly after the filming of this movie in mysterious circumstances.Paul Carpenter, who plays Paul Banner in the movie was born in Canada before moving to England where he was a singer and actor. His cause of death was unclear but he was found dead in his dressing room on 12 June 1964 after a rehearsal. He had just recovered from injuries sustained in a car accident. He was 42 years old.Freddie Mills, who plays Bert Tarrant in the movie died of gunshot wounds on 25 July 1965 which authorities deemed to be self inflicted, however many people believed he was murdered. He was 46 years old.

Paul Banner, a "noozeman" of the Daily Comet in England, is an American (he's Canadian, actually) working in England. He happens on a murder that leads him on a complicated trail. He has a ex-love - Jill Adams, who puts on a passable US accent - and she's attempting to get him back - Meanwhile, another lady vies for his affections. Needless to say, he solves the crime. It was only about 1 Hr. 5 minutes and the pace continues along quite well. The photography was quite good and the acting wasn't as bad as many other films. All-in-all, quite acceptable. Paul Carpenter, who plays Banner, was only 33 at the time.(Looks a lot more). He only had 10 more years to live (I'm unsure of the cause of death - maybe someone out there can tell me.) Jill Adams, who plays the blond bombshell, is still alive as at 2002.