Double Confession

BFI Most Wanted: the hunt for Britain's missing films

Directed by Ken Annakin, 1950

Derek Farr discovers his estranged wife dead and tries to frame William Hartnell's crooked businessman for the murder. Hartnell's henchman, played by Peter Lorre, tries to clear up the mess.

Charlie Durbam (William Hartnell) and Paynter (Peter Lorre) confront a suspicious Inspector Tenby (Naunton Wayne)

Credits

Director Production Company Producer Screenplay Original Novel Adapted by Photography Music Studio	Ken Annakin Harry Reynolds Productions Ltd Harry Reynolds William Templeton John Garden ('All on a Summer's Day') Ralph Keene Geoffrey Unsworth Benjamin Frankel Teddington Studios
Cast: Derek Farr (Jim Medway); Joan Hopkins (Ann Corday); Peter Lorre (Paynter); William Hartnell (Charlie Durbam); Naunton Wayne (Inspector Tenby); Ronald Howard (Hilary Boscombe); Leslie Dwyer (Leonard); Kathleen Harrison (Kate)
85 mins, 7,741 feet, sound, black & white.

Why are we so keen to find it?

Double Confession's cast that reads like a who's who of the best British character actors around in 1950. The pairing of William Hartnell as a local kingpin and Peter Lorre as his loyal henchman is a British noir film-buff's dream come true, and with Naunton 'Caldicott' Wayne as a bemused Inspector, Kathleen Harrison looking for love and Leslie Dwyer as her unsuspecting prey, the film's assembly of British comedians, cult stars and Hollywood talent makes this a must-find. Double Confession's publicity machine plays to this strength, focusing on the eight main characters and questioning who will confess to the murder. Director Ken Annakin, meanwhile, was on the cusp of the most successful phase of his career, which would take him around the world and culminate in such multi-star spectaculars as Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965).

The film is also a missing chapter in the canon of British seaside noir. Its central conceit - crime and murder in a seaside town - clearly borrows from the Boulting Brothers' Brighton Rock (1947). But with its central protagonist coming down from London to wreak vengeance on a local kingpin because of the death of a loved-one, the film surprisingly prefigures Get Carter (1971), albeit in a softer, more humorous way.

What's it about?

The following synopsis was edited from a distributor's press release:

Late one night at Seagate, Jim Medway makes his way along a dangerous cliff path to a lonely white cottage, just in time to see local businessman, Charlie Durbam, leaving. Next morning, Medway learns from reporter, Hilary Boscombe, that a man and a woman died the previous evening. Medway's interest in the woman's death makes Boscombe suspicious. Later, Medway befriends Ann Corday on a crowded beach, but leaves her to make a phone call. Charlie Durbam is talking to Paynter, a faithful assistant whose life he once saved. Charlie had been a victim of blackmail, but he tells Paynter that there will be no more blackmailing letters. Immediately, his phone rings and the man on the line says he saw Durbam leaving the white cottage the previous night. Boscombe tells Inspector Tenby about Jim Medway and Tenby reveals that the police have discovered the dead woman is Medway's estranged wife.

Medway meets Durbam and tells him that he knows that Durbam was having an affair with his wife. Medway admits to killing his wife himself, but says he intends to pin the murder on Durbam. Still investigating the two deaths, Tenby is puzzled by the dead man who has a tight knot in his necktie and large sums of money - he is revealed to be Carston, a man who was blackmailing Durbam. The Inspector also finds an unfinished letter by Medway's wife so decides to have P.C. Sawnton trail Medway.

Paynter suggests to Durbam that Medway must have an 'accident' before he can report to the police. Paynter almost succeeds in killing Medway when he is swimming with Ann, but the couple are helped ashore by Sawnton. Medway and Ann are followed when they wander around a fun-fair by Sawnton and Paynter. Paynter is now very drunk and tries to kill Medway at a shooting gallery but is unsuccessful again. Sawnton phones his chief, and Tenby decides to interview Durbam.

Medway tells Ann that he did not kill his wife, and neither did Durbam, but that he is threatening Durbam out of revenge. They go to Durbam's office and find Tenby already there. Tenby is questioning Medway when Paynter staggers in and confesses to the murder of Mrs Medway. Tenby cannot understand why Paynter is confessing to the 'murder' when he has discovered she actually committed suicide. When Charlie Durbam picks up the phone to call the police station, Paynter realises he is being deserted by the man he is trying to protect, and he leaps through a window on to the roof.

When Durbam catches up with him, Paynter falls beneath a huge neon sign and is caught only by his tie. The tie breaks in Durbam's hand as Paynter falls to his death. Durbam collapses, with the broken remnants of Paynter's tie in his hand. Inspector Tenby produces the tightly knotted tie used to kill Carston, incriminating Durbam in his murder.

Last seen?

The London trade show played on 12 April 1950 and the film gained a nationwide release at the beginning of May. Double Confession's seaside setting would surely have drawn some of the early summer audiences of 1950 and the reviews were favourable, but there is no record of a theatrical re-release. The film was released in the US in the summer of 1953, but it wasn't promoted particularly thoroughly.

The last confirmed screening is an ITV broadcast in February 1962. However, the film enjoyed a decent life as part of the repertory catalogue of Associated Independent Producers, within their 35mm and 16mm libraries - has one of these prints survived?

What else do we know about it?

Perhaps surprisingly, Peter Lorre's agreement to do this independent film (it's his only British film save two for Hitchcock in the 1930s) came when he was still a major supporting actor. Although the press commented on his 'slightly puzzling' presence in the film, Lorre was far from washed up, yet to appear in Hollywood films like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954), Silk Stockings (1957) and Voyage to The Bottom of the Sea (1961).

Less well known, but equally popular among British cult fans, William Hartnell was trapped at this point in his career playing either po-faced authoritarians or aggressive criminals. He talked about his frustration with typecasting in a series of publicity interviews that appeared at the time of Double Confession: "I'm tired of being the eternal 'tough guy' of British films.... I'm certain picture-goers are sick and tired of seeing me pull horrid faces before the cameras, and if I don't change my style I shall soon find myself a has-been!'" Having already escaped typecasting as a comedian in the 1930s, Hartnell was to endure the 'tough guy' image for another decade before finding a different but similarly inescapable persona as the first Doctor Who.

Director Ken Annakin, was by this time well established in the British industry, having worked on the popular Huggetts series of films (Holiday Camp, 1948; Here Come The Huggetts, 1948; Vote For Huggett, 1948; The Huggetts Abroad, 1949) with Kathleen Harrison as the Huggett matriarch. He would go on to direct major Hollywood films in the 1950s and 1960s, including Swiss Family Robinson (1960) and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Producer Harry Reynold's career was modest by comparison, his only other notable titles being a couple of Arthur Lucan Old Mother Riley films.

Does anything survive?

The BFI National Library holds a pressbook, which illustrates the way the advertising campaign used its celebrated cast. There are also two scripts for the film: William Templeton and Ken Annakin's original screenplay and Templeton's final shooting script. They make fascinating reading and reveal significant changes that bring the creative evolution of the story to life. Stills, press cuttings and the distributor's synopsis also survive.

Reviews

The press reviews were very mixed. Today's Cinema declared that "John Garden's suspenseful novel 'All on a summer's day' has been turned into a no less exciting film." But The Star was pickier; its reviewer was "not so happy about the plot, an involved anecdote about a young man who tries to frame his wife's lover for murder."

The film's seaside location attracted similarly diverse responses. Today's Cinema liked the "unusual backgrounds of a typically British seaside resort," as did The Star: 'The best moments occur when Mr Annakin is taking his camera for a stroll along the prom to look at the couples walking by the bandstand, the old men and women sunning themselves in the shelters, the bathers bobbing in the jetty." The Monthly Film Bulletin, however, was less enthusiastic: "The film does not even remain true to its melodramatic plot, but breaks off into touches of stereotyped humour from Kathleen Harrison, and prolonged tours of the various entertainments of the seaside town."

Variety, for the film's 1953 American release, posted a cooler appraisal of its prospects (and an important one for a British industry with one eye ever on the US market). The reviewer notes that the film "may snare a fair slice of playdates in the art house market but appears to have little prospect for general distribution. Peter Lorre is the only cast name familiar to American filmgoers." What a pity, then, that The Star should undermine one of Double Confession's strongest suits: "Mr Lorre rolls his eyes and puffs his cheeks with an ease that comes from long practise, but his highly specialised brand of villainy, made over familiar by a score of Hollywood films, seems out of place in an English seaside town. One cannot imagine meeting anyone quite like that on the cliffs at Bournemouth." The 1950 British seaside was clearly a completely different place to the one it is now. Double Confession, if found, may present a window onto its former glory days.

Dylan Cave, Curator (Fiction), BFI National Archive

You can find more about British films of the early 1950s, including entries on surviving films and video clips for users in UK schools, colleges, universities and public libraries, at BFI Screenonline. You can also view similar titles at the BFI Mediatheques.