a rainy day in the upper Midwest,and waiting to pick up my grandson from school. had me turning on TCM during it's summer under the stars to see who was being featured today. Constance Cummings I was unfamiliar with, however in the previous movie along with Cummings Ralph Bellamy and Irene Dunne stared. I began watching " finger of guilt. having grown up watching 20,000 leagues under the sea with Richard basehart? ( I think that was the name of the series) I began to watch this film. I love location movies, in particular London in the mid 50's. what a terrific movie. basehart was outstanding and Mary Murphy was absolutely stunning. her beauty and the role she played was outstanding. the supporting actors were great. all recognizable , and such pro's. that made a low budget film so wonderful. really a great surprise for a rainy day. wonderful movie !

It's bad enough when your past catches up to you, but it's even worse when somebody else's idea of what your past should be catches up to you.Richard Basehart is a movie maker. A scandal back in the states has driven him to begin a new career in England. That's a plot that should have resonated with the director, Joseph Losey. Basehart's current project is expensive and dicey and the studio is on edge about overruns and expensive costumes.Then Basehart, a happily married man, begins to get loving letters reminding him of a past romance from a woman named Evelyn. That would be Mary Murphy. Basehart, already tense, his reputation as a womanizer haunting his reputation, becomes an unhappily harried man and is driven to see a shrink, who is of no help.He tracks down Mary Murphy and she insists that her story is real, that they had a passionate affair in New York and he'd promised her a job if she came to England. Everything she says rings true. She even convinced the police. He loses his job, his wife leaves him, and he develops a monster hangnail. Either she's lying, for reasons no one can discern, or Basehart is some kind of multiple personality. I won't give away the ending.Basehart is a likable guy. He LOOKS like a reliable Mid-Western type, but his best roles have involved twisted characters. Mary Murphy is a beautiful woman. She was a winsome small-town girl in "The Wild Ones." But here she's not up to the demands of a bitchy, self-serving manipulator. And grooming doesn't help. They've given her a severe hair style and dressed her in "sophisticated" black outfits with some kind of girdle or foundation garment underneath that has pinched her waist into nullity and caused her rear to look cantilevered.Joseph Losey's direction is straightforward for the most part. What isn't strictly functional -- a fist fight shown by shadows on a wall -- isn't too original. And the violent ending seems excessive, with a pudgy and middle-aged Mervyn Johns being knocked about the room by a furious Basehart.

I don't know why, but somehow Richard Basehart always reminded me just a little of Richard Burton...although I liked Basehart a bit more. Unfortunately, Basehart never made it to the A list, even though I thought he was a good and fairly interesting actor. Maybe the problem was scripts that left a bit to be desired...like this one.Here, his character as a film director seems...well, a tad bit stereotypical, at least on the surface. Really, constantly carrying around a cane for no reason just seems a little goofy.But, once you get back the superficial aspects of this film, it gets pretty good. What has to happen to get to that point is getting past the mysterious letters that seem to be hinting at blackmail, to actually meeting the mysterious girl...which finally does happen. Then things get quite good, quite interesting as the mystery deepens.If you look carefully, you'll see this film was on a pretty cheap budget (for example, painted books on a bookshelf). The other problem I have with this film is that it has that sort of tawdry look to it that was not uncommon in lower budget 1950s film...that lacked the class of film noir.The ending is pretty good, although hardly unique.Let's put it this way -- you could do worse. It's worth a watch, but I doubt you'll buy it for your DVD shelf.

This has to be one of the most unrealistic movies that ever came down the pike. It may have been unintentional but the irony of setting something largely in a film studio, i.e. a place where they manufacture unreality, and then portraying that studio as a neglected corner of a run-down industrial estate is priceless. Richard Basehart as head of the studio has an office about as prepossessing as that of a minor official in Eastern Europe in the late sixties and that of his father-in-law and movie mogul Roger Livesey is superior only in the sense that it boasts superior oilcloth on the floor. The story, by Howard Koch, who - unbelievably on this showing - co-scripted Casablanca, is so clearly a metaphor for the Blacklist (both Koch and director Losey, were victims and worked here under John Does) that it becomes risible which it shouldn't do because there were many innocent victims 'accused' of things they hadn't done during the HUAC years and the denouement involving Mervyn Johns is pathetic. Losey completists will want to see it but of you're not one stay home and watch Big Brother.