Strictly average movie

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Charming and brutal

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

A woman returns to England after the death of her father and inherits his property. There are however people who don't want her to inherit and attempts are made on her life. She and an old friend investigate and doubts are raised about her father's death and how drug selling may be involved. It is a moderate mystery with the main villain being obvious. The best scenes are probably the duck hunting expedition and the chasing of the said main villain at the end. Otherwise Terence Fisher directs in a pedestrian way.Rona Anderson and Guy Rolfe as the main leads are given routine roles. More interesting are Peter Jones as a somewhat creepy Lips Leonard and the great Alan Wheatley as Hughes who quietly steals all the scenes he is in. Stanley Baker has a small part where he only has to look slightly mad but does it well enough. Dennis Harkin is amusing as Jimmy-The-One. The music score is provided by Malcolm Arnold no less but is not as memorable as a lot of his many others.

A young woman, Barbara (Rona Anderson), arrives in England on hearing the news that her wealthy businessman father has died - apparently committing suicide. At a shooting party on her country estate, a man is found murdered on the marshes. Barbara and her boyfriend, Robert (Guy Rolfe), turn detective believing the death to be connected with that of her father's. They open the safe at her father's office and learn that it is being used as a link in a dope racket. It becomes clear that her father found this out and was murdered by his business partner, Wainwright (Francis Lister), who was part of the gang. But, Wainwright's accomplice, is aware that the couple are on his tail and they are confronted by him alone in the country house at night...Content wise, it is utterly formulaic British second feature stuff but under Terence Fisher's direction - an early film for him made about five years before he became a key creative figure in the British horror boom via Hammer - it is lifted from being a mediocre to a good film (for its kind). The scenes in and around Rona Anderson's country estate are especially effective with Reg Wyer's b/w lighting making them sinister and shivery. Rona Anderson and Guy Rolfe are cheerful and likable as the standard b-pic hero and heroine while Alan Wheatley is excellent as the head of the criminal gang working as the head of a widow and orphans charity as a cover. Look out for Stanley Baker too as a family servant who is determined to save Anderson from Wheatley's clutches. The film was produced by Lance Comfort who was a prolific second feature director throughout the 1950's and early 60's including such films as Eight O' Clock Walk, Tomorrow At Ten, Blind Corner and Pit Of Darkness.Home To Danger is now available on DVD on Renown Pictures coupled with Montgomery Tully's espionage drama Master Spy.

If, like myself, you were just wanting a glimpse of Stanley Baker before he was famous, don't bother. The man is literally unrecognisable, both facially and in screen personality, playing a mentally sub-normal servant in an elegant country house. Unfortunately he doesn't carry much conviction in the role, and just trogs about like the Holy Fool with Frankenstein thrown in. The Baker we love to hate was still a year or two away.You should remember that this was only a supporting feature, just over an hour long, and as such, it provides undemanding fare. Sixty years on, this is its charm, with every cliché in place, almost an Agatha Christie story, with a shooting-party, the regulation retired major, some deferential police, and an upper-class smoothie (Guy Rolfe) squiring an impossibly beautiful Rona Anderson as the heiress whose new fortune has suddenly put her life in danger. All flavoured with the blend of cut-glass English and Shepperton cockney, without which no 1951 thriller was complete.Alan Wheatley is just a little too unctuous as the boss of a children's charity, so we're not exactly unprepared for trouble in paradise. Terence Fisher's direction was generally praised, though it didn't really need that opening scene at the airport to establish that the young lady was returning from abroad. And Francis Lister fans may be interested to catch him here in his last film, still on fine form.

This is the type of thriller where the ends don't all join up.What we know for certain from the very beginning is that Alan Wheatley is the murderer,simply because this is the role that he plays in nearly every film.However what is not quite as clear is why he is doing in all and sundry.We have Stanley Baker in a very early role playing a servant who is prepared to go to any lengths to protect his mistress.However there are too many unanswered questions.Like what is funny old Peter Jones doing in a role of a hit-man.Why is Alan Wheatley the head of a children's charity and a drug dealer at the same time.I could raise many points like this but none have a satisfactory answer.Thankfully it only lasts just over an hour so not much chance of getting bored.