POSTMARK FOR DANGER (1955)

In London, Tim Forrester, a commercial artist, and his brother Dave, a charter pilot, room together in a flat that doubles as Tim's studio. Tim is using Jill, an old girlfriend with whom there may still be a spark, as a model for a beer ad, though she is soon to marry the wealthy Henry Carmichael. The Forresters learn that a third brother, Lewis, a journalist, was killed in Milan when his car went crashing off a hillside road. The burned body of actress Alison Ford was also found. The crash is declared an accident but Inspector Colby from Scotland Yard suspects sabotage, as Lewis was in the middle of an investigation of a jewel smuggling ring, headed by a mysterious figure known only as Mr. Nightingale. There may be a clue in a postcard Lewis sent (we don't know to whom) featuring a sketch of a woman's hand holding a bottle of Chianti wine. Alison's grieving father commissions Tim to paint a portrait of the late Alison based on a photograph. Next, in short order, Jill enters Tim's flat while he's out and is later found dead, and Alison turns up alive, also at Tim's place, and defaces his sketch of her. Later she asks Tim for help; her father was part of the smuggling ring but wants out. More suspicious characters pop up and a couple more deaths occur before everything is sorted out.

This noirish B-mystery, with its painting of a dead woman who isn’t really dead, is reminiscent of LAURA, and though the American title does reference an important plotpoint (the postcard), the British title PORTRAIT OF ALISON, is perhaps more effective. It’s a little talky and a bit stagy, with the bulk of the film set in the brothers' flat, but there is one well-staged bit of fisticuffs near the end. The mildly beefy Canadian actor Robert Beatty is perhaps a bit wooden as Tim, but William Sylvester (pictured) picks up the slack as Dave. American starlet Terry Moore (who later married Howard Hughes) is a bit boring as Alison, but better are Josephine Griffin as Jill and Allan Cuthbertson as Henry. The plot is twisty and tricky but never gets too complicated to follow. Some viewers have called this Hitchcockian (the postcard is a perfect MacGuffin; I never quite figured out what the importance of the portrait was) but it's too small-scale for Hitchcock. Still, I got wrapped up in the plot, if not necessarily the characters, and enjoyed it. Fun trivia: Sylvester and Beatty share a scene together in 2001: A Space Odyssey; Sylvester has the important role of Heywood Floyd and Beatty has a one-scene bit as one of the men in the lunar rover with Sylvester waiting for a sandwich. [TCM]