Blood Orange, 1953.
Directed by Terence Fisher.
Starring Tom Conway, Mila Parély, Naomi Chance, Michael Ripper, Eric Pohlmann, Richard Wattis, and Roger Delgado.
SYNOPSIS:
A private detective investigating a jewel robbery becomes involved in a double murder.
In Blood Orange (a.k.a. 3 Steps To Murder), private investigator Tom Conway (Tom Conway) is working for Mr. Mercedes (Eric Pohlmann), whose jewels have been stolen from a safe after top London fashion house Pascal was robbed. Mercedes sends Conway to investigate, but crime scene officer Detective Inspector MacLeod (Richard Wattis) is not keen on having private detectives snooping around.
However, things take a more sinister turn when a model and a well-to-do client of the house are found murdered wearing a dress known as ‘Blood Orange’, designed by Pascal owner Helen Pascal (Mila Parély). Suspecting a connection between the robbery and the murders, Conway continues his own investigation, opening up a complex web of events involving multiple suspects.
An early Hammer crime thriller, Blood Orange is a slickly directed British B-movie that follows many tropes of the classic ‘whodunit’ but does trip itself up by throwing in too many red herrings for the plot to flow as smoothly as it should. Director Terence Fisher handles the material with his usual air of laid-back charm and sense of the dramatic when needed, but the script twists itself up too tightly by trying to throw Conway – and the audience – off the scent a few too many times without any drastic action happening between clues being revealed, making the final revelation of who is behind all of the crimes a little underwhelming when it gets to that point.
But getting there isn’t as much of a slog as it could have been, thanks to Fisher’s direction and some delightful performances. Tom Conway plays the weathered private detective perfectly – he had played Sherlock Holmes and Simon Templar in various radio plays by this point, so he had his vocal mannerisms already worked into shape – and the chemistry with the female leads make those scenes have a certain sizzle that never really comes out, but it is there. Hammer regular Michael Ripper also shows up as an unsavoury character, and watching him drive about in an old banger as he follows Conway is never not amusing.
Presented in a 4K UHD/Blu-ray dual-format set, Hammer have put together another package that collectors and fans will lap up. Whereas the movie itself is fairly average, the disc comes with two cuts – the UK Theatrical and the US Theatrical (under the 3 Steps to Murder title) – and each comes with their own audio commentary, the UK cut with critic Kim Newman and author Barry Forshaw, and film historian Lucy Bolton and film critic Phuong Le on the US. There is also Dressed to Kill, a conversation between author David Pirie and writer Wayne Kinsey about Hammer head honcho Michael Carreras and his role at Hammer during the early 1950s, which is fascinating if you are unaware of how the company worked back then.
You also get featurettes covering the fashions portrayed in the movie, a discussion about Hammer’s run of low-budget B-movies from the period and an interview with actress/filmmaker Alice Lowe about Blood Orange and how it represented women in cinema at the time. Both discs come housed in the usual stylish packaging that Hammer have been employing on their previous releases, along with a booklet stacked with articles and essays about the film, so the consistency of putting out a quality product with each release continues.
Overall, however, Blood Orange is a movie that needs such a lavish presentation and some serious supplementary material because, as a film on its own, it just falls short of being the engaging and clever crime thriller it is trying so hard to be. The direction is solid and the performances equally enchanting, so its problems come down to the script and the fact that for a thriller, it isn’t very thrilling. It is watchable, and should be watched as it is a part of British film history, but chances are you’ll find the extras more entertaining than the main feature.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
