A Question of Suspense

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A Question of Suspense
A Question of Supense film 1961 title screen.jpeg
Directed by Max Varnel
Screenplay by Lawrence Huntington
Story by Roy Vickers
Based onan original story by Roy Vickers
Produced by Bill Luckwell
Jock MacGregor
Starring Peter Reynolds
Noelle Middleton
Yvonne Buckingham
Cinematography Philip Grindrod
Edited by Robert Hill
Music by Wilfred Burns
Production
company
Bill & Michael Luckwell Limited
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date
  • 1961 (1961)
Running time
63 mins

A Question of Suspense is a low budget 1961 British black and white crime drama "B" film directed by Max Varnel, based on a story by Roy Vickers, starring Peter Reynolds, Noelle Middleton and Yvonne Buckingham. [1] It was one of several crime films starring Reynolds. [2]

Contents

Plot

Tellman Drew is a businessman who has deposited £30,000 worth of forged bonds with his bank. When his chief clerk and childhood friend Frank Brigstock discovers the fraud, Drew offers him a partnership in his business, but lures him to a lonely spot by the coast and murders him and buries his body. Drew persuades the police that it was Frank who had been behind the scam and has absconded.

Rose Marples, who has been living with Frank as his wife, and has known both men since her youth, is not convinced. She begins her own investigation, ultimately discovering the burial site and bringing about Drew's demise.

Cast

Critical reception

Monthly Film Bulletin said "Thinly scripted murder-and-revenge melodrama, unexceptionally directed and working up to a tidy climax which was never in doubt for a moment." [3]

The Daily Cinema noted on 26 June 1961 that the film "concentrates its drama on the characters and what makes them tick." [4]

Production

The 1968 Report of the Film Industry Committee shows that the Irish Film Finance Corporation had invested in the production of the film. [5]

It was made at Ardmore Studios, Bray in Ireland. Although set in England, external scenes were filmed around Dublin and Greystones, including Frank Brigstock going to work on a CIÉ (Córas Iompair Éireann – Irish Transport Company) bus.

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References

  1. ↑ "A Question of Suspense". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  2. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (11 November 2024). "Peter Reynolds: Forgotten Cad". Filmink. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
  3. ↑ "A Question of Suspense". Monthly Film Bulletin . 28 (324): 116. 1 January 1967 – via ProQuest.
  4. ↑ Clinton, Franz Antony (30 October 2020). British Thrillers, 1950-1979: 845 Films of Suspense, Mystery, Murder and Espionage. McFarland. p. 98. ISBN   9780786410323 . Retrieved 4 September 2023.
  5. ↑ Rockett, Kevin; Gibbons, Luke; Hill, John (11 November 2013). Cinema and Ireland. Routledge. p. 123. ISBN   978-0415726481 . Retrieved 4 September 2023.
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