Rent Cat and Mouse (1958)

Headline Muse - Cat and Mouse review by CH

Headlines appear as newspaper pages are turned in Cat and Mouse (1958) - and bring a running commentary.

BISHOP BRAINS BOBBYSOXERS

“Well, I bet he has a bit of fun himself.”

DOPE FIEND SWITCHES SEX

“The things people get up to, Sarge!”

As it turns out, all this makes for a crucial moment but to cite these droll remarks does not give anything away. Here is a film with curious origins. Adapted from one of the many hundreds of novels by John Creasey, it was directed and co-written by none other than Paul Rotha who was, of course, best known for his documentaries praised by Graham Greene with the caveat that they were “seldom free from a certain prettiness and self-consciousness”.

Prettiness is not to the fore in this tough tale, apart from Ann Sears. She arrives at a bedsit house somewhere in London in answer to a summons by a wonderfully creepy Hilton Edwards who had witnessed the crime for which her father was hanged twenty years earlier: the killing of a man during the theft of some diamonds which, Hilton asserts, do survive – and he wants his share.

This is but a prelude, for he takes a tumble – and the noise of their altercation is heard by a man the other side of the door: Lee Patterson. As suave as he is insecure, he hits on her and a plan to collar the sparklers. Far from documentary – apart from its nighttime scenes in the West End -, most of the film is a matter of interiors. Some might question the implausibilities but, then again, one can do so of Hamlet. There is enough happening here – ample mcguffins – to carry one through its seventy-five minutes with a relish aided by a fine musical score, the work of Edwin Astley (he of The Saint and much more), whose daughter was to marry Pete Townshend a decade later.

There is surely much more of John Creasey that could be filmed. He knew how to plot, and others could supply snappy 2022 dialogue.

A Cheap Diamond. - Cat and Mouse review by NC

Ann Coltby is lured to an address on the other side of town, and so falls into the hands of a middle-aged nasty piece of work. Then, when she thinks she has accidentally killed him, into those of a mentally unstable G.I. deserter. Improbable enough, but then we have to believe it's all about some diamonds stolen by her father twenty years earlier, which no-one has bothered to try to find since. This is only the beginning of a series of coincidences and near-impossibilities which run through the film like a seam.

It's a shame because there is something of a decent effort buried beneath the usual fault-lines of a cheap B picture. Coltby finds herself held prisoner back in her own home, where a lot of the action takes place, giving a well-handled claustrophobic atmosphere. The dialogue is as wildly inconsistent as the G.I., but putting up with the worst means the reward of much better stuff as well (two scriptwriters?). Easily the best aspect of the film is the presence of Ann Sears. Given the tired, stock character traits she is presumably made to enact from the director, and some dire lines, to still pull off a performance like this requires real talent. How on Earth was she not better known?

More cock and bull than cat and mouse, if you can get past the pretty awful first 15/20 minutes you'll probably find yourself hooked.