Light in the Dark

Or, rather, Heat Wave, a title that sounds rather more like a Fritz Lang film than a Hammer production which, oddly has two surprises in it. Firstly, Sidney James is pretty good in a straight role (but then again, at this point he hadn't had the decade of Carry Ons), and secondly this is the noir version of The Great Gatsby. Or at least the set up reminded me of parts Gatsby, which I haven't seen or read for twenty years. But surely the British title offers an echo of it?

This is one of the Hammer attempts at noir - directed by Kenneth Hughes rather than Terrence Fisher - with two American import actors, Alex Nicol as writer Mark Kendrick and Hillary Brooke as the femme fatale, Carol Forrest. Kendrick, struggling to finish a novel, becomes friends with Beverly Forrest (Sidney James), who is clearly already disillusioned with his second wife, Carol. Mark and Carol have an awkward relationship which heads towards an affair, as she decides that it's time to murder her hubby to guarantee her inheritance. As in so many of these films, we have a screwed on over character (Mark) telling the story in retrospect.

James's performance is great - the man who has made it and is not comfortable, who has punched above his weight. It's a story that must exist in a hundred American variants (The Postman Always Rings Twice, to some extent Double Indemnity, but here we have a British version - I'd not heard of High Wray, Ken Hughes's own novel, named for a real place in the Lake District where this film (and presumably novel) is set. Mark clearly allows himself to be led astray - his lust for women and drink, or at least one woman, is what gets him into trouble.