FILM REVIEW - DILEMMA - 27/01/08

Schoolteacher Harry Barnes (Peter Halliday) comes home one afternoon to find a dying man in his bathroom, he has been stabbed with a pair of scissors. His wife, Jean (Ingrid Hafner), is missing but Harry's nosey neighbours tell him that they heard a woman scream from his house earlier that day. Harry eager to protect his wife decides to bury the body under the floorboards of their house but this is not going to be easy since he gets interrupted by a number of unwelcome visitors...

The basic premise of this little seen British b-pic from the Bryanston studio, which only got a very limited release in 1962 and according to the booklet accompanying the DVD, it has only been shown on TV once, is a promising one about a man having to dispose of a body but is constantly finding himself interrupted by a number of unwelcome visitors including his nosey neighbour in the form of Barbara Lott who is always interested in what Halliday is up to and is always out in the garden with her shears trimming the hedge that doesn't need trimming just so that she can see through his window and forever popping round to make him a cup of tea. The story would have made a great half-hour instalment of something like Alfred Hitchcock Presents or Tales Of The Unexpected as there are enormous possibilities for suspense and black comedy as well. Unfortunately, the treatment it gets here is far too pedestrian with indifferent character development which only goes as far as Barnes' mother coming around and criticising his marriage and bemoaning the fact that he hasn't advanced the career ladder as quickly as his father did and the suspense very seldom takes its grip on the audience. The twist ending is rather predictable and by the end of its short 65-minute run time you will find yourself not really caring anyway.