Look If You Like...But Look Out! The Cards Are Stacked...Against Any Man Who Falls For Her Kind of MAN BAIT! Blonde Blackmail!
Most fans of Hammer Films are probably aware that the company didn't enter the film industry the moment Christopher Lee agreed to don plastic fangs for the 1958 adaptation of Dracula, or The Horror Of Dracula, as it was tagged in the US; or even with the production of their first sci-fi/horror thriller, the 1955 film adaptation The Quatermass Xperiment, starring Brian Donlevy. The company had been around since 1934 making dramas, musical comedies and successfully churning out quickie crime and noir pictures to pad out bills in British cinemas that were, at the time, working under a content quota, requiring a certain amount of material screened in national cinemas to be of British origin. In 1951 Hammer struck a distribution deal with Lippert Pictures, helmed by American producer and cinema chain owner Roger Lippert. The four year contract began with 1952's The Last Page, which was the original British title of our feature, Man Bait, retitled as such for American distribution; though I've personally been unable to find any evidence of playbills, posters or other promotional ephemera bearing the original The Last Page titling.
Perhaps the British posters did the plot a little more justice than the lurid American campaign, which falsely amps up the sexual innuendo around Diana Dors's role in the picture. The no frills noir is directed by Terence Fisher, the man who helped make Hammer a household name in the 50s and 60s by directing the aforementioned The Horror Of Dracula, as well as The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957), The Curse Of The Werewolf (1961), and a slew of others including one of my personal favorites, The Gorgon (1964).
 |
| Diana Dors as Ruby Bruce |
Despite the ad campaign, the film doesn't really center around a black widow-esque femme fatale at all, and while a crucial part of the film's plot, Diana Dors doesn't even really get all that much screen time. She plays a young bookstore clerk named Ruby Bruce. Ruby is upset with her boss, American John Harman (George Brent), because he expects her to do things like show up for work on time consistently, and perform her duties while on the clock. One day, after being reprimanded for showing up late again, Ruby catches a young man attempting to steal a rare book from a locked case. Ruby agrees not to draw attention to the fact that the man has tried to rob the store as long as he puts the book back. The man in turn invites Ruby to have a drink with him after work. It just so happens that Ruby ends up staying late to help her employer pack a large shipping order before he leaves for an extended vacation with his invalid wife. While preparing the order, Ruby accidentally tears a sleeve of her blouse, and, in a moment of weakness, the two find themselves engaged in a kiss. The two shrug it off and go their separate ways. That is until Ruby keeps her date with the would-be thief, and he begins to pressure her to change her story and pressure her boss to hand over the money he'd withdrawn from the bank for travel, under the threat that she'll tell everyone that he tore her blouse and forced himself on her if he doesn't. The insidious young man is a poncy crook named Jeff Hart (Peter Reynolds, Devil Girl From Mars), just out of prison and looking for a quick score.
 |
| Ruby (Dors) and Jeff (Reynolds) |
Irritated with the way her boss had been hassling her about her tardiness and thinking it might be an easy route to quick cash, Ruby responds to Jeff's coaching, which eventually results in the death of the bed-ridden Mrs. Harman, after she receives an anonymous letter detailing the supposed assault. After Ruby is accidentally killed by Hart, police target her employer as the murderer, sending him on the run until he can prove his innocence.
Brent was added to the cast at the request of Lippert, who wanted to ensure the picture would find footing with American audiences. The fact that he's an American business owner in England is addressed with a quick smattering of contextual dialog about him having stayed in the U.K. after being stationed there during World War II. His personal secretary Stella Tracy (Marguerite Chapman), was his nurse during his hospitalization in the war, and had decided to stay with Harman in London after he opened his book shop there. Of course Stella is not the gravely ill Mrs. Harman, which complicates things, especially for Stella since Harman is such a devoted husband, and of course, when John goes on the lam after Ruby's body shows up at his house in a crate that was supposed to be filled with books, she circumvents the law to help him prove his innocence.
 |
| Lobby card featuring George Brent and Marguerite Chapman. |
As can be expected there's a fair amount of melodrama in the film, centering primarily on the unrequited love between John Harman and Stella Tracy. The film culminates in Harman confronting Hart after he's been tracked to the flat of a casual girlfriend by police. Hart tries to destroy the apartment and kill Stella by setting it on fire before he's captured. In a tragic parallel, actor Peter Reynolds and his dog were killed in a fire in 1975, when his Sydney apartment burnt down as a result of him smoking in bed.
It may not have the celebrated grit of many American or French noir films, but Fisher's Man Bait is a competent little crime thriller that doesn't hide who did what, or offer any mind twisting revelations at the last moment, so much as it puts all the players in a maze and allows the audience to watch and see who makes it out before the final reel is run. This isn't a whodunnit so much as a study of motivations, complex and otherwise, that lead people into the actions that bring about tragedy.
Despite the text on the posters stating "Introducing Diana Dors," it wasn't by any means her first picture, though she was probably less known by American audiences at the time. The screenplay was adapted by Frederick Knott from a stage play titled "The Last Page" by James Hadley Chase. Knott would go on to write the screenplay for Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder just two years later.
Dir. - Terence Fisher; Screenplay - Frederick Knott; Original story - James Hadley Chase; Cinematography - Walter Harvey; Editor - Maurice Rootes; Music - Frank Spencer; Producer(s) - Anthony Hinds.
John Harman - George Brent, Stella Tracy - Marguerite Chapman, Ruby Bruce - Diana Dors, Jeff Hart - Peter Reynolds, Inspector Dale - Meredith Edwards, Joe - Harry Fowler, Vi - Eleanor Summerfield, Clive Oliver - Raymond Huntley.
Comments
Post a Comment