US air force jet pilot Bill Rogers (played by Dan Duryea) arrives in London to find his wife Katie (played by Elsie Albiin) missing. He learns from a friend and neighbour, Pam (played by Marianne Stone), that she has left as a result of his being away from home for months at a time due to his work in search of a more exciting life, which has seen her make a number of male "friends". He discovers that she has moved into a luxury West End flat where he meets her but is knocked out from behind. He regains consciousness to find Katie murdered with his own gun, which the killer has pressed into his hand. Realising that he has been framed, Bill flees evading the police and is taken in by a charity worker called Jenny Miller (played by Gudrun Ure) who runs a local soup kitchen. She agrees to help him find the real killer and clear his name. Bill only has 36 hours leave in London to do all of this before his plane is due to take off for the States. His investigation leads him to discover that Katie had fallen in with diamond smugglers, blackmailers and confidence tricksters. Does the key to a safe deposit box found on her body hold the key to the mystery?
The title and the premise of a framed man racing against time to clear his name suggests an action packed and suspense filled drama. Alas, this is a strictly by the numbers British 'B'-pic from a pre-horror Hammer studio, which suffers from slack construction, much talk and what little action there is is either clumsily or indifferently presented. Duryea, the obligatory imported American leading man, is a sombre hero and his relationship with the heroine, Gudrun Ure, is insufficiently developed to provide much of an emotional centre to the story. Montgomery Tully, one of Britain's most prolific makers of second features and shorts during the 1950's, directs with pace ensuring that it's never boring to sit through and, remarkably, he even manages a little in the way of mild suspense from the plodding script. You should get the most fun from spotting the many familiar faces who turn up in the supporting cast. They include Canadian Lee Patterson in a bit part as a pilot who would go on to be a leading man in several British 'B's' of the period, Russell Napier from the long running Scotland Yard series of featurettes, Kenneth Griffith and Marianne Stone, who would become a regular in the Carry on comedies, in a rare straight part.
The title and the premise of a framed man racing against time to clear his name suggests an action packed and suspense filled drama. Alas, this is a strictly by the numbers British 'B'-pic from a pre-horror Hammer studio, which suffers from slack construction, much talk and what little action there is is either clumsily or indifferently presented. Duryea, the obligatory imported American leading man, is a sombre hero and his relationship with the heroine, Gudrun Ure, is insufficiently developed to provide much of an emotional centre to the story. Montgomery Tully, one of Britain's most prolific makers of second features and shorts during the 1950's, directs with pace ensuring that it's never boring to sit through and, remarkably, he even manages a little in the way of mild suspense from the plodding script. You should get the most fun from spotting the many familiar faces who turn up in the supporting cast. They include Canadian Lee Patterson in a bit part as a pilot who would go on to be a leading man in several British 'B's' of the period, Russell Napier from the long running Scotland Yard series of featurettes, Kenneth Griffith and Marianne Stone, who would become a regular in the Carry on comedies, in a rare straight part.