Police realism and location shooting pre-Bergerac. Ian Hendry is the laid-back detective with the annoyingly perky wife. In a scene that initially looks like a fashion shoot, a part-time model is found shot. The detectives shuffle around her flat, which is decorated in busy patterned wallpaper, with frilly nylon underwear spilling out of drawers. They move upstairs, where lives a beautiful TV star (male), his Pekinese, his fur staircarpet and his ruched net curtains, played by James Villiers. Homosexuality was not legalised for a few more years, and attitudes were changing, but the word still couldn't be spoken. The poor man is eventually found (after a lot of plot twists) stabbed in a gay club. We get there via a washed-up opera singer's shrine to herself (shown off by devoted Rosalie Crutchley) and a dubious baroque casino. Any London film of this period has to end up at the river - the fog, the boats, the gritty docksides were a gift to film-makers. Underneath it all is a drug-dealing plot with clues hidden inside identical biros. A gem.

I have seen "Sapphire", "Violent Playground" and "Hell Drivers" but was very surprised to find that Britain had it's own niche of gritty, noirish crime thrillers. They don't have the stylized dark alleys, beautiful dames that spell "trouble" and laid back drawling gumshoes but they do have realism in spades and in the 1960s were still making them. Ian Hendry was a terrifically versatile actor who first came to notice in the TV series "The Avengers" - I have seen him as a sleazy beauty contest promoter in "The Beauty Jungle", a sadistic sergeant in "The Hill" and only the other week, twin brothers (one criminally insane of course) in a Thriller episode "A Killer With Two Faces". I was also surprised to read the comments which had Hendry's Inspector Birkett described as dull and unexciting - I mean he drives a Jaguar and loves opera, maybe Colin Dexter saw this movie before he created Inspector Morse!!He has been called in to investigate the murder of a model, the only clues being a ball point pen found in a nearby bush and a gun in a cistern. They meet her upstairs neighbour, a posturing TV actor David Dane (James Villiers) and his annoying Pekinese who, of course, is putty in Birkett's hands. Dain, however, acts dumb when asked about the private life of Ursula Grey. Their search leads them to an old school friend, Perlita Barker (Natasha Parry from popular 1970s show "Father, Dear Father") whose sinister husband paints a picture of a promiscuous girl who had a baby at 16.For all the convoluted plot it is pretty leisurely and could have had a tighter reins put on the editing. Also featured is Blakeleys, a very swanky up market club that Virginia frequented - "there will be a few worried gentlemen there". To his wife's question of whether she was a call girl, Birkett replies "I think she did all the calling". A gorgeous Jeremy Brett plays Jordan Barker, who claims to be Ursula's fiancée, implicates Dain in a black mail plot involving Ursula and her "medicine" and also Madame La Valle, a once renowned opera singer who lost her voice and now relies on "medicine" (cocaine) to get her through the lonely nights. Her assistant (Rosalie Crutchley) grants Birkett his wish of being able to listen to the great artist sing. They are soon back to square one when Daine is found dead at a jazz club, also a dubious pick up place for homosexuals.After a good fifteen minutes following Jordan around the port, he is an oyster fisherman and the police have a tip off the cocaine may be being smuggled via hollow oars - I know, I know - what will script writers come up with next!! the mystery is solved literally within the last 60 seconds when the police remember the one person who doesn't have any reason to wish Ursula well!!As well as everyone mentioned, Kieran Moore is featured as well as lovely Jane Asher as Birkett's teenage daughter, Lindy, who goes into mourning on the death of her idol, David Dain with a "you don't understand Dad" when Birkett tries to explain why he is not exactly heart broken at Dain's death!!Highly Recommended.

I think the criticisms of this film are a bit strong. We have to remember that 45 years have elapsed since it was made and our tastes have become more sophisticated with the diet of increasingly slick and clever movies and TV series that we now enjoy. I think Hendry plays the detective role well - sort of laid back and not falling into the cliché characterisations of the time. He is a Jaguar driving opera loving detective (now which more modern detective series does that remind you of?). I had not seen this film before watching it the other day on Movies4Men (UK) and enjoyed it for what it was - a fairly entertaining movie from the early 60's.

And no Christie either.Hence a rather unexciting detective story which blends Agatha's whodunit with film noir elements.A bevy of characters is overkill in lieu of a well-constructed mystery.The performances are a bit listless and the director tries a hand at humor with one of his inspectors'cold.Attshoo!The most interesting in this movie is the settings,chiefly in the second half.One of them seems to be a gay bar,but the word (it's 1963)is not uttered;Some scenes are filmed on location on the Thames banks; a chase in a graveyard is rather good.Nevertheless,it will satisfy neither Christie's countless following (the plot is too poor) nor the film noir buffs (too watered-down and not enough ambiguity).Stick with Hercule,Jane,and co.