Send for Paul Temple (1946) – 6.0
Aka - The Green Finger
This is the second time recently that I have come across a British radio
show that was adapted to film. Last week it was the Dick Barton series of
three films and this time it is Paul Temple. Both very unknown to me. The
wonders of the Internet. Temple is likely best known for the radio as his
series has run off and on from 1938 to 2013. That is quite a haul. The character
of Temple was created by Francis Durbridge who wrote most of the scripts
for the radio shows and then made novels of them. Four Temple films were
made from 1946 to 1952. But that isn't all. A TV show had fifty episodes
between 1969 and 1971. The radio show was adapted in Germany, Italy and the
Netherlands. And more - there was a comic strip published in the London Evening
News for 20 years. And I had never heard of him! It shows how sometimes -
especially before the Internet - what was happening across the ocean never
had any impact over here in the USA. In England I expect everyone knows Paul
Temple. Probably has an ale named after him. Or a beastly meat pie.
This is the first in the series and is quite good. Nothing fancy but a solid
mystery and two engaging characters. The fellow who plays Temple here did
not repeat his role in the other three - which is a shame because he is very
low key appealing. In that British manner. Temple (Anthony Hulme) is a novelist
and seemingly a very popular one considering he lives in a huge mansion with
a very odd annoying manservant whose nationality is impossible to pin down
with his squeaky voice and a maid. He also occasionally helps Scotland Yard
solve crimes. A gentleman crime solver. Smokes a pipe. Never speaks a harsh
word.
A gang is doing a series of smash and grabs and being brutal about it with
a few murders. The Yard is flummoxed as they tend to be in movies. An inspector
and friend of Temple comes to him for advice and is soon murdered. With the
help of a female reporter (Joy Shelton) named Steve, they begin snooping
about. The trail of killings may backtrack to South Africa where a mastermind
with a secret identity is behind it. Comes in at 83 minutes and is on the
go. Not a spoiler really but at the end of the film he elopes with Steve
to get married. And that sets up the next three films because in the radio
show they are a husband wife team of detectives.
Calling Paul Temple
(1948) – 4.0
Two years after the first in the Paul Temple series, they dust off another
radio script and adapt it to film. And it shows in the serial format and
shoddy writing. There are as many holes in the film as one of my older beloved
socks and they leave a bunch of unanswered questions at the end - the main
one being why were these people being killed. It may be a bad sign when the
film is distributed by Butcher's Film Service. What do you want today Mac,
pork chops, sirloin or a film? Both Paul Temple and his wife (girlfriend
in the first film) Steve are replaced by new actors - John Bentley and Dinah
Sheridan and they are lightweight without much pizzazz. The previous actors
were much better. The film is really a mess though you don't realize it till
the end when you see how pointless it was. Till then you just think this
is really complicated with a myriad of characters popping in and out.
Someone is killing women and leaving the name Rex scrawled on the wall. It
is up to four I think when Paul Temple gets involved. He is a mystery writer
with a nose for murder and his wife enjoys them just as much. He has such
a good reputation that Scotland Yard follows his instructions. Yet to these
neutral eyes he is not very good. More lucky. He keeps falling into traps
- a bomb planted, a wife used as bait. It is one of those corny mysteries
in which two times no make it three in which someone was going to spill who
Rex was and gets killed before they do. One was literally writing it down
"And Rex is . .. " before they get it. I still am not sure who that even
was and not sure if one of them was killed or just wounded. Another question
not answered. As was who was the cadaverous man and why were his muddy footprints
all over this movie. But Temple is at his worst during the denouement when
he is about to hear who the killer is and says "Turn of the lights". Gadzooks
man! Never turn off the lights when you know the killer is in the room! Amateur
Detective 101. In the film's favor there is a lengthy nightclub scene in
which Celia Lipton sings two song - make that one and a half songs - and
make that four who were about to spill the beans. And their Indian manservant
(Shaym Bahadur) breaks out into a stanza of a Bollywood song and Temple tells
him to shut up.
Paul Temple’s
Triumph (1950) – 6.0
This third in the Paul Temple series is a solid comeback to form after the
too convoluted for its own good second film. I like the little touches in
this one. For example, even five years after the end of WW2 England is still
rationing certain items. So when Temple goes into a small shop to ask for
20 cigarettes, the owner says you can only have 10 unless you want American
cigarettes. Then you can have 20. Which explains why later when someone is
offered a cigarette they gladly take it. Drugged and all. Or that a couple
crooks are black marketers for petrol. But Temple and his Missus are not
after black marketers - they are after international spies. Not just a nest
of spies but a global organization that is very like the future S.P.E.C.T.E.R.
They steal secrets and sell them to the highest bidder. An organization simply
called Zed. Who no one knows who the head is and they communicate through
the announcements on Radio Europe. And they seem to be everywhere.
A friend comes to them and says her father has gone missing. Another brilliant
atomic scientist who is working on his own to create a device that can track
and explode incoming objects. Sort of like what Reagan called the Star Wars
Defense System. And this guy already invented it decades before! He has been
kidnapped by Zed and soon the Temples are chest deep in intrigue and espionage
with spies to the left of them and spies to the right of them. They check
into a hotel and it feels like everyone else is either a spy or a thief.
Temple assists them by never locking the door so people can just keep walking
in.
His wife Steve does not come off very well in this one - she is offered the
drugged cigarette. One puff - I feel a little funny - another puff - I am
dizzy - third puff - oh I have a headache - fourth puff as she takes a nose
dive down. Blame the rationing - she just could not stop. Everyone is madly
puffing away in this film. Then later as they wait for Zed to show up at
a secret hideaway and she opens the door for him - but it is someone she
knows - so she tells Temple, it isn't Zed - it is so and so. He says that
is Zed, you idiot. I added the idiot. Still this goes along fairly well -
a bunch of killings and near killings. For a British B, this is well-done.
And Rickey the manservant is back - no Bollywood song this time - turns out
he is from Rangoon.
Paul Temple Returns
(1952) – 5.0
Aka - Bombay Waterfront
The bad news is that Rikki, the Temple's manservant, has returned to Rangoon
to take care of his three children but the good news is that his brother
Sakki has come all the way from Burma to replace him. With his mother's recipes
for Burmese food. Yummy. Almost needless to say this being 1952 but the portrayals
of both Rikki and Sakki are tinged with racism and funny accents but they
are so peculiar and the Temples find them so amusing that I am willing to
look the other way.
This is the fourth and the last of the Paul Temple films though he did return
for a TV series from 1969 - 1971 that lasted 52 episodes and receives a 7.5
rating on IMDB. Higher by a long ways of any of the films. Also, of some
interest is the appearance of two actors who would become much better known
in the future. At the beginning of the film Temple. played again by John
Bentley for the third time, is in American on a book tour and is being interviewed
on TV. The interviewer is Arthur Hill aka Owen Marshall at Law, Later I hear
a voice and recognize it before I see the man - Christopher Lee as an Egyptologist
and potential murderer. He has a sizable role.
A serial killer has murdered three people and goes by the name of The Marquis.
Why serial murderers in these films need names I don't know. There seems
to be no connection between the victims. Temple is back from America and
is warned off which of course always serves the opposite purpose. He and
his wife - this time played by the very attractive Patricia Dainton - jump
right in. Bentley and Dainton also co-starred in Hammer the Toff in the same
year. Bentley is one of those nondescript actors - pleasant looking, genial
but no sparks - hard to feel one way or another about him but he seems to
have done all right for himself with quite a few English films in the 50's
and then as Hugh Mortimer in 254 episodes of a TV series called Cross Roads
that lasted for about 10 years. Their suspicions land primarily on the Egyptologist
who lives in a spooky house with a spookier manservant than Sakki. A few
attempts on their lives which they shake off like a 6 pm cocktail and a murder
or two and we have a fairly straightforward decent murder mystery.
