Rogue's Yarn (1957)

I love this movie so much

Fresh and Exciting

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

There is a connection to the odd name of the film which isn't apparent until the conclusion of the murder investigation. Although this is a crime thriller about an adulterous man's murder of his wife, the term 'Rogue's Yarn' is a nautical one, describing the yarn used only in naval rope and indicated from their colour the ropeyard in which they were made. They were introduced to stop thieving by making the rope easily recognizable. In the days of sailing, naval rope was considered far superior to any other, and there was a great temptation to smuggle it out of the dockyards and sell it to owners or captains of merchant vessels.The connection becomes obvious near the end of the film.Only one other oddity. John Marsden intended to murder Inspector Walker by filling up the below deck cabin with butane gas so that it would explode when he struck a match to light his pipe. It would become instantly obvious to anyone entering the cabin that the smell alone would be sufficient warning that something was amiss. Anyone who has used butane in caravans would recognise the smell, so why didn't the Inspector?

ROGUE'S YARN is an intriguing little murder mystery, shot in Brighton by director Vernon Sewell and featuring his famous yacht that had previously appeared in the likes of GHOST SHIP alongside many other productions. As some other reviewers on here have noted, the structure of the film and the content make it feel very much like a COLUMBO episode, with the murderer introduced to the viewer at the outset.The dashing Derek Bond plays an adulterous husband who plots to bump off his invalid wife with the help of his mistress. All goes according to plan, until a dogged detective shows up and threatens exposure. What follows is a fun police procedural movie, with a lot of screen time spent on the unravelling of a perfect alibi.The unknown Elwyn Brook-Jones stars as the detective, with the familiar Hugh Latimer in comic relief support as his sergeant. I wasn't familiar with Brook-Jones before this film, but the Roy Kinnear lookalike does a good job at bringing his working class character to life. He makes Walker both a realistic and likable presence. Although ROGUE'S YARN is undoubtedly a B-movie in terms of budget and narrative, Sewell is one of those directors with the capability to make any film look good and there's a great suspense sequence involving a leaking gas tap.

This British B movie, one with important nautical elements in its plot, reminded me of an episode of Columbo. It's a tale of murder and detection where we know "who dunnit", and how the killer fixed himself the "perfect alibi", from the start.Egged on by his greedy mistress, a middle aged man of what was once called "good breeding", kills his rich, termagant of a wife (who was expected to die, but is in recovery) for her money, and gives himself a seemingly unbreakable alibi. Initially the murder appears to have been the work of a burglar, but enter our hero, Inspector Walker, a short, not handsome or attractive police detective, who cleverly suspects the husband almost from the start, and sets about looking for the evidence to get him. Walker is a much more conventional type than Columbo, but still something of a maverick as an investigator (though he doesn't harass and irritate his suspects to death!) nor is he such an eccentric personality as Peter Falk's character, there are no real moments of Columbo reminiscent comedy in the portrayal. Unlike Columbo, Walker is often seen working with a police underling (the man playing that part resembling comic actor Edward Everett Horton!). Elwyn Brook-Jones, whose appearance meant he often played villainous parts on screen, here gets a chance to be a good guy (sadly this distinctive actor died in 1962 aged only 50). Derek Bond (once a screen Nicholas Nickleby, whose career was on the slide by the time this movie was made) is the distinguished looking murderer. Nicole Maurey was a very attractive lady, but here she overacts at times as the grasping mistress - a character who is somewhat inconsistently written.There is one completely risible scene where our detective escapes death in a way that stretches coincidence way beyond the even remotely plausible, but on the whole I quite enjoyed the film. The performance by Mr Brook-Jones interested me enough to find out more about this rather obscure character actor.

Not a very compelling film at all, I erroneously believed it was from the late thirties, perhaps an English suspense drama. Upon looking it up, I see it is from 1956! Inexcusably dull film.Derek Bond as the husband agrees with his French mistress Nicole Maurey that he will kill his invalid wife so they can be together. He devises 'an ingenious plot' by making sure he is seen voyaging out in a yacht, racing back in a rented speedboat or something, murdering her, then hurrying back, establishing his alibi. Apparently automatic pilot was still a bit of a novelty as that seemed to be the evidence that turned the tide. French witnesses to an unidentified speedboat and a gas fume leak in the yacht were also little tidbits to pay attention to. Pity Hitchcock couldn't have gotten hold of this one.Bond sought to off the Inspector with that gas fume leak on the yacht when he lit a match but the Inspector was out of matches. Suddenly Maurey was shocked by the man she saw. Why, when she had pushed him into murdering his wife? Maurey and Bond are for some reason listed as the stars but the investigating detectives were more compelling to watch. Look for 'Double Indemnity' instead.