BLIND COMFORT is an engaging little B-picture that acts as another version of the 'blind person in peril' sub-genre. It's a film that benefits from fine leading performances from William Sylvester - utterly convincing as the blind and embittered husband - and Barbara Shelley as his adulterous wife. As is so often the case with such films, Shelley is desperate to get her hands on her husband's fortune so concocts a murder plot with the aid of her lover.Most of the film takes place in a single location, a lavish penthouse apartment with a balcony overlooking the city. I wonder if this was an inspiration for the recent B-movie PENTHOUSE NORTH which had almost exactly the same setting and was also about a blind person terrorised in her own home.The script is well written and well paced, with plenty of material to fill up the running time. It manages to successfully pull the rug out from under the viewer's feet on at least one occasion, and even if you think you know how this one's going to play out, there are still surprises in store. I found that Sylvester gave a very sympathetic performance without ever overdoing the sentiment, while Shelley plays a very different kind of character from those we know in her Hammer pictures. I found her completely despicable, the most horrible character of her career. BLIND CORNER was directed by veteran director Lance Comfort, who would go on to direct Sylvester again in the following year's horror picture, DEVILS OF DARKNESS.

By coincidence I was reading the iconography of Lance Comfort in the British filmmakers series when I came to view this film.Lance Comfort started directing A films in the early 1940s and drifted down to B features and TV work.Difficult to know why.This film came towards the end of his career.It would seem to be more of a co feature than B feature.It is a competently made film on a fairly familiar theme.Namely blind men in jeopardy.Here William Sylvester plays the apparent victim and Barbara Shelley the adulterous wife who wants to get her hands on Sylvesters money without having to bother about a divorce.However her ingenious plan to have Sylvester go wrong in a rather unexpected way.Incidentally there are two numbers by crooner Ronnie Carroll who only died a short time ago.

Ann Gregory (Barbara Shelley) is the wife of a blind but successful composer called Paul Gregory (William Sylvester) but she is secretly having an affair with a young, strugling artist called Rickie Sheldon (Alexander Davion). As an excuse to spend more time with her lover, Ann suggests that she persuades her husband to hire him to paint her portrait. Paul agrees but after a recording session with crooner Ronnie Carroll (who plays himself in the film) he is tipped off by his recording manager and best friend, Mike Williams (Mark Eden), who does not get along with Ann, that he saw both her and Rickie dining together at a restaurant and that they looked like more than strangers - they are in love. Paul wastes no time in informing the pair that he is aware of the affair and Ann tells Rickie that the best way to keep their "champagne and caviar lifestyle" is to murder her husband by pushing him off the balcony of their flat when he has had too much to drink so that it looks like an accident. She tells Rickie that their affair must end if he does not do it. He eventually agrees but are things what they really seem?A better than average crime b-pic from director Lance Comfort who worked almost exclusively in this area of the British film industry throughout his career. Unusually it features a nice twist in its tale of adultery, greed and murder that comes as quite unexpected. Performances are good all round too except for Mark Eden's unconvincingly characterised record producer who says laughable lines like "One ring-a-ding-ding okay all systems go,success!" in a hopeless bid to sound "with it". But the screenplay by James Kelley, Vivian Kemble and Peter Miller does allow William Sylvester's character a more realistic side. Gregory is a hard drinker who does not appreciate the quality of his work despite its success. "Churning out three minute commercial music...success does not necessarily mean its good". He also states that his real love is for composing concertos. In real life there has been stars be they musicians, film makers or whatever who are dismissive about the quality of what they do even though it has made them famous. One slight drawback is the numbers sung by crooner Ronnie Carroll who was at the height of his fame with hits like Roses Are Red under his belt when he appeared in this. But the two songs he performs in this, Blind Corner and Where Ya Going?, are typical examples of very moderate songs written especially for a low budget film and do little to have us believe that they are the work of the film's fictional hit composer. I very much doubt that they would have even dented the Top 50 had they been released as singles. The latter is staged as a TV performance in which real life Radio Luxembourg DJ Barry Aldis puts in an appearance as the compere. But another plus side is that despite the majority of the plot taking place on a couple of studio bound sets with very few exteriors, the film has a real sense of place and atmosphere enlivened by strong performances and Basil Emmott's atmospheric black-and-white camera-work.

A nice compact little tale of lust and greed.William Sylvester plays a blind but very successful composer who's wife played by the scheming Barbara Shelley has a lover on the side, an artist played by Alex Davion.Things get complicated when Shelley sends her lover round to bump off her husband to get her hands on his money.But things go badly wrong when Davion is confronted by Sylvester and told the real truth about his wife, "I may be blind but I'm not stupid" claims Sylvester.Meanwhile Sylvester's loving secretary is doing all in her power to get her boss into her arms but he will have none of it, he then sets up his wife and catches her with her real lover who happens to be Sylvester's manager who pro-fuses to hate Sylvester's wife but in fact they are having an affair.Neat little thriller with good performances all round.