I’ll try to keep this review as short as the case for this blu-ray was thin. I am starting to suspect UK distributor Network relegates to these cases the movies they know aren’t the jewels of their catalog.
In this case, the movie is 1951’s The Long Dark Hall, a rather weak courtroom thriller. Rex Harrison is falsely accused of murdering a young dancer. Lilli Palmer is his dutiful wife, willing to believe his story that he was trying to help a wayward young woman overcome her alcoholism. Needless to say, that story doesn’t hold water once he’s up on the stand for a while.
The real killer is Anthony Dawson, as a guy so creepy he might as well walk around with a sign around his neck that says, “THE KILLER”. Nobody seems to notice he’s attending the trial each day. He’s even so bold as to offer Palmer a ride home one day, and she, despite behaving like a competent human being up until this point, accepts.
Also, we see the Dawson kill at least two women, both of which are entertainers. I think it’s even safe to assume Dawson likely committed more than two of these crimes, and using the same method for each. Seeing as to how there’s some extent of a pattern established, I’m amazed Harrison is only on trial for one murder. Alternatively, since there were multiple related murders, wouldn’t that likely get him off the hook for this single murder?
If there’s one thing I liked about this movie, it is the photography. There’s some solid night photography in the beginning when Dawson is stalking his victims. That style carries over some into the trial scenes, though there’s only so much you can do with the interior of a typical UK courtroom.
The dialog isn’t much, but I did like a moment where an exasperated trial attendee addresses a stranger with “Do you know why juries don’t like circumstantial evidence?” and the man emphatically replies, “YES”. I loved how this random person doesn’t embellish their reply with any additional information.
The Long Dark Hall is a B-movie in every regard. It is competently made, but little more than that. It is the kind of thing the audiences of 1951 forgot as quickly as the modern viewer forgets the last thing they watched that was direct-to-streaming.
Dir: Reginald Beck and Anthony Bushell
Starring Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer
Watched on Network UK blu-ray (region B)