THE ACCURSED (1957)

We see someone leave a building and moments later, a man named Zimmerman is found dead inside, hanging from a noose. At his home, Col. Price (Donald Wolfit) is hosting an annual reunion of the survivors of a WWII French resistance unit. He gets a call from Dehmel that he has discovered the name of a traitor whose actions during the war led to the execution of Keller, the cell's leader, by the Nazis. But when Dehmel gets to the house, he stumbles in, says "There’s been a mistake," and falls over dead, a knife in his back. Thus begins this British country house mystery, similar to an Agatha Christie story, as a group of people in the house spend the evening trying to figure out who killed Dehmel, and therefore most likely who was responsible for Keller's death. Among the survivors gathered: a Polish concert pianist (Anton Diffring, pictured) who plays a particularly dramatic piece called "Prelude Without a Name," a German doctor (Christopher Lee), a professor (Carl Jaffe) and his daughter (Jane Griffiths) who may have been involved in the past with both Keller and the pianist. Two more people show up: an American army officer (Robert Bray) and his associate (John van Eyssen) whose car has broken down. But we soon discover that they are there because they were following Dehmel, so they have a stake in discovering the killer's identity. Bray and Griffiths flirt a bit (at one point, she says wearily to him, "Are you planning on making love to me, Major?"), secrets are revealed—including that Bray knew Keller in the war, and Bray is given until 7 in the morning to solve the murder. This fairly traditional mystery is stagy but well acted and has a nice dark house look to it. Wolfit, a famous stage actor in England, has first billing and is important to the first hour of the movie, but once Bray shows up, Bray becomes the focus of the narrative. Wolfit, known for some scenery chewing, underplays nicely, letting Bray do a little overacting of his own at times. Diffring does well as the highly strung musician and Lee, though in a relatively small role, holds his own. The solution and the 'mistake' that Dehmel alluded to are both clever. It's very talky and not exactly exciting, but it's a solid old-fashioned one-set mystery. Original British title: THE TRAITOR, which makes more sense. [DVD]