Eric Portman does a murder, must frame another
to clean his mess, and before long, everybody's dipped hands in blood. One of
those perfect crime yarns where a dynamic open meets challenge of logicalfollow-through, the web closing round writers surely as it does on Portman and
homicidal company. It all comes down to personal taste for unsolvable crime
that convention dictates will be solved. Dialogue is smart and that sustains
even where logic falters. Jack Warner investigates after dogged fashion of
cases he'd sleuth on other Brit soundstages, he being realist face of law
enforcement as opposed to eccentricity of Alastair Sim, who'd admittedly have
been more fun had he probed Dear Murderer's case in guise of Inspector
Cockrill. There is Dennis Price, pleading for life as Victim #1, andHazel Court is
fresh and well back of horror parts she'd become better known for. Dear Murderer
was a while getting US-release (by Universal-International), Variety calling it
"destined for the filler bracket." Trades could be rough on Brit pix,
but Variety was maybe right when pointing out that a "cleverly-plotted
part of the way" tended to falter afterward. There were thirty-three UK pix released
here in 1948. Did a homegrown industry and public consider that an excess?
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