User reviews

Dear Murderer (1947)

What a fabulous, complicated, feint and double feint movie about murder, attempted and otherwise. It's a very British feeling film, and though it has a film noir darkness (very dark, in my copy), it doesn't have the angularity nor the action of an American noir. More defining, though, is the deliberate parlor game feel to this very deadly situation. You might compare (if comparing is helpful) to the Joan Crawford "Sudden Fear" to make this most obvious.

There is a lot of sparring with words here, very smartly written, and you have to pay attention as the intentions of the characters seem to be shifting all the time. You have to have the low key, steadfast, opaque, and clever detective of course, and the detective here is brilliantly all those things. And you have to have motive, which we have in abundance.

And you need abundance since so much is going to go wrong here. Eric Portman is the key figure through it all, and he plays a jilted husband with laconic brilliance. His wife, and his wife's several lovers, are all excellent in support, each either surpassingly innocent at heart despite their adulteries, or really devious and selfish. It's beautifully constructed, and really a joy. But you have to pay attention. No getting up for popcorn here.

Eric Portman, Greta Gynt, Dennis Price, and Jack Warner star in "Dear Murderer," a 1947 film courtesy of Gainsborough Productions.

Portman plays Lee Warren, an Englishman who has to be away for eight months in the U.S. setting up a New York office for his firm. His wife Vivien, who has cheated on him before, promises him she is over all that and will write every day. She keeps it up for a while and then the letters stop. Warren sees a photo of her in a Tattler magazine with one Richard Fenton (Price) and knows she's being unfaithful again.

The film actually begins with Warren dropping in on Fenton and announcing that he's going to kill him, and that it will be the perfect crime. Complications ensue, not the least of which is that dear Vivien has another boyfriend as well. Fenton decides to kill two birds with one big stone.

Really excellent suspense film with the beautiful Gynt looking incredible in some fabulous clothes, including the gown she wears when we first see her - it would cause a splash at today's Oscar ceremony. Jack Warner, who seems to be always playing a police detective, is here in his familiar role again.

A perfect Sunday afternoon movie and if you're a lover of mystery and suspense as I am, you'll enjoy this.

I happened across this movie on Netflix and, due to my love of noir films and its 94-minute running time, I decided to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

The plot set-up is fairly simple: a wealthy British businessman returns home early from a business trip to America, discovers evidence that his younger, seemingly devoted wife has been stepping out on him, and decides to get his revenge. That's where the fun begins.

His seemingly foolproof plan doesn't quite go exactly as he thought, which is the case in a lot of movies like this. What separated this movie, though, was that even as the husband's plan began to lose its original shape, what he was able to mold it into became even more diabolical than it was at first intended.

Although all of the cast does a decent job in their assigned roles, it's really the lead roles of the husband and wife played by Eric Portman and Greta Gynt, that deserve special mention. Both play their parts quite well, Portman as the well-spoken, egotistical husband, and Gynt as the manipulative, philandering wife.

I especially enjoyed watching Gynt's character, who plays the role of the femme fatale here as a treacherous vixen who could stand alongside noir's best. In certain movies where wives seek the affections of someone other than their respective mate, they're portrayed as a character who just desires attention from an emotionally distant husband, or one who is either emotionally or physically abused at the hands of a domineering brute. Here, however, she is a truly terrible person, and some of the reactions she gives when hearing information that would normally be very troubling to a person is pretty fascinating.

I don't want to build this movie up as anything more than it is, an enjoyable hour-and-a-half of a formula most of us have seen before, but check this one out on a rainy day when you don't feel like going outside. You might find that it's a bit better than you'd expected.

Poor Eric Portman is saddled with a habitually unfaithful wife. He decides to commit the perfect crime, and murder the nasty wife's lover (Dennis Price). Problem is, he soon finds out that little woman has yet another lover. What is our poor, DEAR MURDERER going to do now?

This is a perfect English mystery movie for those who love English mystery movies. The murderer is rather sympathetic. The crime is charmingly convoluted -- it might even give Sherlock Holmes a few rough moments. And the Scotland Yard detective is like all Scotland Yard detectives (when not co-starring with some brilliant amateur detective) -- smarter than he looks, visiting his quarry constantly with "just a few questions, sir." Those who are more used to American films might think the pace a bit slow (particularly at the beginning), though this pacing really does pay off with an unexpectedly twisty final reel.

If you don't really like old movies, this is not for you. But if you remember being happy when you found that the late show you were about to watch was going to be an English mystery, this will be perfect. Note, though, nothing really stands out about this one. It's all crisply enough acted, with a few noir trappings imported from America for the finale. But ultimately , all it is is a jolly good show, best enjoyed with a crackling fire and some mighty good sherry.

Low budget noir with deep shadows. Greta Gynt is great as the nasal-voiced adulteress. Her tacky furnishings (lampshades like skirts and satin sheets) betray her inner rottenness - spot those coiled serpents on the shoulders of her nightdress! Eric Portman is as brilliant and compelling - and sympathetic - as ever. If you like this, see him in A Canterbuy Tale. xxxxx

...that is what the lead/murderer is in this film. I'll explain.

Lee Warren has to go to America on a prolonged business trip. While in the US he sees a social page of the paper and there is his wife - who hasn't written him very much - dancing and out on the town with a barrister. He comes back to England without tipping off his wife and manages to kill her lover yet make it look like suicide - he uses gas. As he is cleaning up after the murder who pops into the dead man's flat but his wife and ANOTHER man. It turns out that the now dead barrister was right. His wife did have other lovers, and this lover in particular, Jimmy Martin, is somebody she wants to marry. Turns out she considers it over with the now dead barrister. Has Lee killed in vain?

Well, not exactly. He figures he can try to make this suicide look TOO obvious, get the police to believe it is what it really is - murder covered up to look like suicide - and frame Jimmy Martin in the process.

Well, this is all going swimmingly except for two things. One, the inspector on the crime, Penbury, played by the great Jack Warner - no not THAT Jack Warner - is suspicious about how neatly everything is sewn up. The second thing is that Lee Warren, for all his caution and care as a murderer, is really a fool for love when it comes to his wife. He confesses all to her when they are alone and says he told her just so he could watch her suffer. But then she leaves so he can't watch her suffer, and when she returns days later she says she has decided she loves Lee after all, but he just CAN'T let Jimmy, both innocent and of no longer any interest to her, die for a crime he did not commit. He must find a way to get Jimmy off and yet not confess himself. And the poor slob believes her.

I'll let you watch and see how this all ironically plays out. The main problem with this film is not the acting or direction or the story - all are great. The film is too dark at points, and at other points the soundtrack downright overpowers the dialogue. I think I'd give it another star if it wasn't for these technical details.

Costarring the great Hazel Court as Jimmy Martin's cast off girlfriend. You might remember her as the scream queen of circa 1960 Roger Cormen horror films. Highly recommended.

"Dear Murderer" is a short, very intriguing British mystery that caught my interest by its title. After a long work-related trip, Eric Portman comes home to find his wife not home. But, in fact we find out real quick that he knows a lot more than that and he's intent on killing the other fellow, played by Dennis Price. Greta Gynt is the unfaithful wife. But then there's a twist; Eric soon finds out there's more than one. He can't kill them all, Dennis says. But Eric finds a way to pin the murder on the other other fellow. All these convoluted schemes made for a very complicated but absorbing mess. I liked this very much with its layered plots developing more and more as it went along, but, by the end, the viewer really has very few people to feel any compassion for and therefore it feels a bit mean-spirited and/or downbeat. But the irony of the unexpected, Eric Portman's acting, and his character's egotistical disposition make up for any flaws this film may have. Sit back for a very perverse experience of the British kind.

This is a gloomy British film noir made just after the War, starring Eric Portman as a wronged husband intent upon revenge. He has been away in America for 8 months on business, but during that time he came to realize that his wife was being unfaithful and going around with another man back in London. He returns without notifying her and sets about his meticulously planned campaign of murdering her lover by means of what he calls 'the perfect murder'. The film is based upon a play of the same title by St. John Legh Clowes. It was filmed twice for television, firstly for the BBC in 1949, and secondly in 1957 for the Armchair Theatre series on the ITV network. The playwright turned it into a novel, and that was filmed in 1972 as a German TV movie entitled GELIEBTER MOERDER. It is rather a sinister tale, and I marvel at its popularity. In this first filming of the story, Portman's wife is played by Greta Gynt. She is excellent as a totally narcissistic and faithless femme fatale, of the most disgusting kind. When she is told that a man has committed suicide over her, the camera closes on her face as we see her thrilled and gloating at the news, and she says to herself excitedly: 'He killed himself for me!' Dennis Price, in his best arch and snobbish manner, plays the lover who is murdered by Portman. But Portman discovers that the murder was pointless, because his wife has already dropped Price and taken up with another man played by Maxwell Reed. There are many twists and turns, much duplicity, lying, and deception, and several false stories. Through all of this the study police inspector played by Jack Warner does not believe anybody and knows something is fishy with all their stories. It would all be very fascinating if the people were not all so horrible and the events so very repulsive. Arthur Crabtree did a very good job of directing, and he uses a great deal of darkness in his shots to underline the awful gloom.

Would you really do anything for the one you love? She's beautiful, your wife and you've just found out that she's been having an affair while you've been away. You've come up with an idea of the "perfect murder". It's going to plan... or is it? This is a really clever plot, you the murderer are getting a two for one deal because you've just found out your wife has been two timing her lover. The police will never suspect you or if they do what are the chances of proving that you did it. There is a great sub-plot which I never saw coming; my evil mind was not focused.

Very slow moving, but still compelling, worth sticking with till the bitter end, if only to see how it all pans out.

Lee finds out his wife is having an affair, so he kills the man, and sets it up to look like a suicide. Only problem is, his wife has stopped having an affair with that man, and moved onto a new affair!

Greta Gynt, looking a lot like Gene Tierney, is great, as are Hazel Court and Andrew Crawford, whose parts were unfortunately very small. If you're getting bored, take heed that the movie does pick up an awful lot in the last quarter! 7/10

What a glorious mess of jealousy, infidelity, murder and aborted intrigue! But with what stylishness all this advanced and intelligent cruelty is worked out! I have never seen Eric Portman in a sympathetic character, more often than not he has been an almost unilaterally determined murderer and nothing else, and this time he is married to the overly beautiful Greta Gynt. Of course he must love her with a passion which makes it impossible for him to live without her, but how little he knows her! You must not trifle with lovely women,for their beauty will always give them the upper hand on you, and you will be helpless. For all his intelligence and perfect scheming, Portman commits the one mistake of actually believing that his wife loves him when she tells him so, and of course she does, but in her own way. In fact, Portman in all his brilliant superiority of intelligent calculation is the only one who commits mistakes, and he does it all the time and doesn't even notice it, deluded as he is by his own self-confidence and trust in his own perfection, which is hopelessly hollow.

Dennis Price as usual makes a brilliant appearance, although unwillingly awkward, while Greta Gynt is the main attraction of this extremely intellectually stimulating play. It's impossible to guess the outcome, and when the desperate chess love game is finished and everyone beaten, only Greta Gynt remains and makes her exit with a hearty laugh. Well, for a lovely woman like her with all those lovers and cavaliers, victims and wrecks, she is superior enough to detach herself from her own tragedy with a laugh.

Murder is no laughing matter, and Dennis Price for one understands that too well, while all the others... Anyway, Greta Gynt definitely has the last laugh.

"Dear murderer", impossible to miss such a title, it's a pure british noir gem, with a tough nasty femme fatale played by Greta Gynt. British film noir is often more direct in drama than american film noir, and "Dear murderer" is a perfect example, from the beginning, it's pure noir murder and it gets more and more complex with numerous twists until the final terrifying scene. Casting is great, Eric Portman is the lead. Director Arthur Crabtree is known for two classic B horror movies, he didn't direct many cinema movies.

Little has been done to breathe cinematic life into this perfect murder stage play. Main problem is that none of the main characters are likable or very interesting. The person I was most interested in was Jane Hylton as the maid. She seemed to have far more going on beneath her servant exterior than anything anyone else managed to muster, (but lesser characters often do intrigue me.)

Eric Portman does a decent turn as the cold, reptilian villain, and Greta Gynt (with ludicrous period hair-do and frocks) exudes ice as his missus. It's always good to see Dennis Price, and Jack Warner walks through his part as the detective.

I was mildly amused by Maxwell Reed's height. He towered over everyone else - must have been a chore composing some of the shots. The editing is nicely judged, but there's a (perhaps typically British) tendency to shy away from an intimate clinches. Maybe it was a censorship thing, but no-one seems to be allowed to have a decent snog.

DEAR MURDERER is a 90-min British film noir about a husband (Portman) who learns that his wife (Gynt) is cheating on him, so he returns unannounced to the UK, from the USA, and proceeds to ice the one lover, only to learn there is another.

Portman proceeds to display all his savvy about a perfect murder but in the end it is not so perfect and he pays the ultimate price for believing that his cheating wife actually loves him.

Interesting but stagy dialogue. In the end, it is the evil in Gynt's character that makes this film worthwhile viewing.

Portman, Gynt and Price all deliver strong performances.

Competent photography and direction - definitely worth watching.

A day or so ago I commented on the film (made only a few years after wards) that somehow resembles this one: FOOTSTEPS IN THE FOG. The basic story is of two ill-matched people who are in a marriage from hell. FOOTSTEPS was about a Victorian gentleman who murders his first wife, only to be blackmailed into marrying his socially ambitious maid, and how he starts conspiring to get rid of her as well. The problem with FOOTSTEPS was a lack of decently spirited direction. It lacked spark and pace, and gets boring. The cast tries, but it does not help enough.

Not so with DEAR MURDERER. Unlike FOOTSTEPS (which was a Hollywood product - so it had to be burdened by larger budgets, and needed vervier directing), DEAR MURDERER is typical of the success story of British cinema - how with a concentration on minimal effect their films are sharper than bloated productions like FOOTSTEPS . The plot is also more devious.

In FOOTSTEPS Jean Simmons' ambitions help destroy her and Steward Granger. But one can easily understand where she is coming from, as we tend to sympathize with people trying to pull themselves out of lower classes into upper classes. But this is dented because she is a blackmailer (though Granger's misdeed deserves such a punishment). Here, Eric Portman is married to a perpetual flirt (Greta Gynt) who despises him. She has been carrying on with Dennis Price, and Portman decides to kill Price. Yet, even in the process of doing just that, Portman gets to know his victim, and realizes that if he had not been sleeping with his wife Price could have been a good friend of his. So his guilt is increased when he discovers that Gynt and Price had broken up their relationship shortly before the murder.

See: the story is still melodramatic, but the characterization is more interesting. So is the difference regarding Gynt's personae, as opposed to her opposite number in FOOTSTEPS. Simmons is socially ambitions, but the audience can accept that. Gynt is sluttish and also unlikeable. She is tired about the marriage to Portman (who does, misguidedly, love Gynt), and eventually wonders how she can end it - quickly. The film speeds to it's conclusion. If one dislikes Portman's Nazi in 49TH PARALLEL (his best remembered performance), his performance here certainly makes up for his totally unsympathetic villainy there.

I have no problem recommending this film to the readers of these reviews. And of recommending it over FOOTSTEP IN THE FOG to them as well.

As I watched this for the first time it seemed familiar. Then I realised: it pretty much followed the exact same structure as an episode of Columbo. Even the plot is very similar to Murder By the Book. I'm sure the writers had seen this film beforehand.

On the whole Dear Murderer is pretty good. The excellent cast help you overlook one or two small, hard to believe plot points.

Dear Murderer is directed by Arthur Crabtree and collectively adapted to screenplay by Muriel Box, Sydney Box and Peter Rogers from the play by St. John Leigh Clowes. It stars Eric Portman, Greta Gynt, Dennis Price, Maxwell Reed, Jack Warner, Hazel Court and Jane Hylton. Out of Gainsborough Pictures, music is by Benjamin Frankel and cinematography by Stephen Dade.

Lee Warren (Portman), consumed by jealousy over his wife's unfaithfulness, believes he has executed the perfect murder, however, he hadn't bargained on another one of his wife's lovers entering the fray. But sensing a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, he executes another cunning plan…

Perhaps he's Adolf Hitler in disguise? He's about the right height.

A wonderfully twisty British thriller, Dear Murderer enjoys giving off a whiff of unpleasantness as it enthrals from the get go. Classic Brit staples are in place for this type of thriller, a vengeful man, harlot woman, intrepid copper and male suitors caught in a trap. Construction is as such, that it's initially hard to actually get on side with any of the principal characters, but one of the film's many delights is in how it constantly alters the trajectory of sympathy towards the actual murderer! It helps as well that the story doesn't rest on its laurels, this is not merely about one murder, and about one man trying to get away with that murder, it's about more than that. There's a lot of talking going on, but it's all relevant to actions that are soon to follow, so when the flip-flops arrive, we are fully prepared and immersed in the devilish goings on.

Arthur Crabtree (Madonna of the Seven Moons) is something of an unsung director from the British classic era, where often he has been termed workmanlike and steady. Yet he was able to make much suspense and atmosphere from the most basic of set-ups. He also was a good director of actors, as evidenced here with the performances he gets out of Portman (calm, calculated and cunning) and Gynt (a wonderful slinky femme fatale dressed up to the nines). While in conjunction with photographer Dade (Zulu), he puts period Gothic noir tints on proceedings, especially on the exteriors where darkness, shadows and gaslights imbues murky machinations of plot. There's a big leap of faith required to accept one critical turn of events entering the home straight, but ultimately the finale is not damaged by it, for here a black heart beats strong. Splendid. 8/10

"Dear Murderer" is an absorbing murder mystery with remarkable casting, top flight actors, and plenty of nocturnal interior atmosphere with lamps, clocks, candelabra, curtains, fireplaces, and hallways. The early, timeless scene between the jealous husband, Lee Warren (Eric Portman) and the dandyish lawyer lover Richard Fenton (Dennis Price) not only sets the tone for all the twists and turns to come, and draws the viewer into the mystery, but is also the movie's most developed and affecting scene.

Those that follow mainly between Lee Warren and his wife Vivien (Greta Gynt), and Vivien and Jimmy Martin, soon begin to drive home the point that the four major players in this murky crime drama all have desires and/or needs that are exploited by one or more of the others, and that all except Fenton, proclaim deeply felt, exclusive love, over and over. Vivian is the femme fatale-style romantic, Lee is the tightly wound jealous husband, and Jimmy is Vivien's tall boyishly infatuated lover. All indulge in deceptive acting that, in turn, requires more acting, more deception, and more dangerous outcomes--including, of course, murder.

Lee is in the position of master conjuror. He can make use of, and dispose of Fenton, Vivien, and Jimmy as he sees fit. And Vivien, caught up in a web of men, and only valued for her arresting physical appeal, would seem to have the least pull. But there is no perfect murder, even for the "clever, cool, and calculated," and one human detail, or exception, starts the never-ending unraveling process. And, ironically, most of that havoc comes from Vivien, whose unwavering distrust is more than a match for her husband's polar hate-love declarations, and his delusional, increasingly shaken and disturbed behavior. So, Vivien who has nothing more than a siren's call, ends up with the final call--even if her own form of idolatry for her whimsical young beau makes it short lived. Yet the absurdity of both his ring's inscription "till death us do part" and life itself seems both crazily freeing and maddening as Vivien's wild laughter stakes out "Dear Murderer's" final scene.

ERIC PORTMAN finds his wife has been cheating on him and decides to commit the perfect murder by doing away with her lover (DENNIS PRICE). Sound familiar? Of course, it does.

It's been done so many times before and usually more effectively. At least Portman does a commendable job in an unlikeable characterization and his wife (GRETA GYNT) is a sly and cunning female of the type you'd expect in this kind of crime melodrama. She's rather smitten with one of her suitors (MAXWELL REED) and her loyalty to him causes her downfall when she tries to outfox her husband.

It's slow moving and obviously based on a stage play with most of the action confined to a few sets with lots of stage dialog. The director lets the pace lag considerably and never speeds things up for what is supposed to be a surprise ending.

Anyone looking for a tense crime of passion will be disappointed. It ambles along at its own slow pace, but most viewers will want to see how it all ends. Should have been a lot more suspenseful.