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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'A thriller novel later turned into a screenplay in which the eponymous Mr Denning murders a blackmailer with whom his daughter has fallen in love and, in panic, dumps the body in a lonely rural area.' (The Bibliography of Australasian Judaica 1788-2008, p. 12)
Adaptations
-
form
y
Mr Denning Drives North
( dir. Anthony Kimmins
)
United Kingdom (UK)
:
London Film Productions
,
1952
6394986
1952
single work
film/TV
crime
thriller
A largely negative review in the London Times offered the following synopsis:
'That brilliant aircraft designer Tom Denning (Mr. Mills) clearly has something on his mind and spends more time pouring out drinks than working at his drawing-board, but the secret and the suspense are kept artfully in being and the audience, like a small child listening to a story, is anxious to know what is going to happen next. And it knows, by the sacred pen of Conan Doyle, it knows! Tom has committed a murder, knocking out his daughter's blackmailing lover (Mr. Herbert Lom) by a neat upper-cut with the result that the man hits his head against the grate and promptly expires. Suspension of belief is a favour asked by, and freely bestowed on, all kinds of murder stories, but the stories, on their side, are expected to put as little strain on credulity as possible; the slow, lengthy flashback which shows Tom disposing of the body is one long strain on credulity which shatters patience and the film into fragments.'
Source:
'New Films in London. Strain on Credulity', The Times, 24 December 1951, p.2.
