The Teckman Mystery (1954)

One of my all time favorites.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This fifties British mystery film holds together and is very good. It was based on a mystery tale by Francis Durbridge which had been filmed as a six-part BBC television series only the year before, entitled THE TECKMAN BIOGRAPHY (1953-4), with a now forgotten cast, which has never been reviewed, and is presumably lost. The story, being here greatly compressed, thus has a great deal of meat to it and is never short on substance. The film was the first feature film directed by Wendy Toye (1917-2010), a multi-talented woman who was also an actress, choreographer, dance instructor, ballet dancer, writer, producer, and stage director. She did an excellent job of directing this film, which is a true British film noir. John Justin and Margaret Leighton are the leads and they do very well. Leighton is very good at ambiguity and impenetrable mystery. Roland Culver plays a dogged police inspector and Michael Medwin plays the elusive Martin Teckman, who turns out not to have died as a test pilot in the dramatic crash of an experimental plane after all, but turns up in the middle of the film very much alive but very much on the run. It is a good and intriguing espionage yarn.

Novelist Philip Chance is pushed into writing a biography about young Pilot Martin Teckman, a young man that died testing a plane (The F109.) He's all set to begin when he gets a job offer in Germany that's almost too good to be true, after being out celebrating with his publisher Maurice Milller he returns home to find a dead man, Garvin, in his living room. Garvin was known to Maurice, and was a friend of Teckman. Philip had made the acquaintance of Teckman's sister Helen on a flight home, she's quizzed by Inspector Hilton and Major Harris. Garvin had worked on the test plane with Teckman. Philip is pulled off his flight, and Helen gets a phone call from whom she thinks is her brother.Frances Durbridge's work has been made adapted several times, but there is always a particular flavour to his work, so much mystery, suspense and intrigue. I'm a huge fan of Melissa, a series penned by Frances, there are definitely similarities.Really enjoyable film, lovely performances, John Justice and Margaret Leighton were particularly good, you are literally left guessing until the very last, 8/10

I just wanted to say a few words about this gem of a film. I gladly watched the 90 minutes and enjoyed all of the suspense. I ordered this film as I like British Film Noir and I happened to notice Margaret Leighton's name topping the cast. I am also a John Justin and Raymond Huntley fan too! It is always nice to see Jane Wenhem who is little known. The photography is really done very nicely. Once I started watching I had to see what happened to the brother who was suspiciously murdered. From the first engaging moments through the rest of the film I really got caught up in the suspense! I think the entire film was wrapped up in a tidy way. At the end we find that things work out unexpectedly! But we still have enjoyed watching.

Considering Miss Toye's over-vaunted reputation with the "in" crowd, it's a wonder this extremely middling "A" feature hasn't made it to DVD. Perhaps even the most desperate distributor would admit that 90 minutes is far too long to engage even the most amiable viewer in a mystery that most disappointingly turns on that over-used plot device: spies. Miss Toye's plodding, stolidly unimaginative direction doesn't help. Neither does Margaret Leighton's rather flat portrayal. Admittedly she is saddled with a thoroughly unconvincing part. Justin does what he can to fill the gap, playing with so much more animation than usual that he could be accused of over-acting. Roland Culver, alas, is saddled with a role that is both small and colorless. Raymond Huntley, it appears at the conclusion, was supposed to be a red herring, but his acting is so stiff that few, if any viewers, would even consider him as a suspect. Likewise Michael Medwin seems thoroughly unconvincing as the subject of a smash-hit biography. Fortunately, Duncan Lamont comes across as an absolute delight as the sarcastic police inspector. All told, however, the film is weighed way down with a surfeit of talk. Twenty minutes of deft editing would certainly improve an audience's lot, even if it meant postponing Miss Leighton's entrance and eliminating the final super-mild exit in the plane. Assistant art director: John Hoesli. Production manager: John Palmer. Assistant directors: Adrian Pryce-Jones, Peter Maxwell. Set continuity: Shirley Barnes. Music played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Western Electric Sound Recording.