HOME AT SEVEN / MURDER ON MONDAY (1951)

This modest murder mystery is the unexpected choice for Ralph Richardson’s directing debut . . . and finale; he never tried again. Richardson makes an unexceptional job of it, but does surround himself with pros behind (writer Anatole de Grunwald; lenser Jack Hildyard; score Malcolm Arnold) and in front of the camera (himself; Margaret Leighton; Jack Hawkins). If only the story’s tsunami of circumstantial evidence linking Richardson’s mid-level bank manager to a local robbery/murder didn’t end as a last minute deus ex machina soliloquy that scuttles a promising plot gimmick with Richardson coming home, as always, at seven, but a full day late. It’s not Monday at seven, it’s Tuesday at seven. 24 hours gone missing. No moot point when some recent actions & a few white lies only tie him tighter to that robbery at his club and to the murder of a club employee he tried to have fired. As director, Richardson can’t do much with the facile explanations that get him in (and eventually out) of trouble, all second-hand stuff, but does manage a slightly off-balance, playful tone that keeps you watching. A shame he put Hawkins in the wrong role. Cast as a sympathetic shrink, brought in by Leighton’s worried wife, he really ought to be playing the police inspector, a better, larger role which goes to journeyman Campbell Singer. Perhaps Richardson let Hawkins make the choice.*

DOUBLE-BILL: *See what Hawkins might have done as Inspector in John Ford’s barely released, much dissed, modest to a fault, but neatly handled GIDEON OF SCOTLAND YARD/’58.