Jigsaw

Fondly remembered in its native country but still strangely neglected in the United States, the taut British thriller Jigsaw opened in the summer of an astonishingly strong year for the country's cinematic output. Just contemplate that by Christmas that year the U.K. had turned out Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. No, Billy Budd, Lolita, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, All Night Long, The L-Shaped Room, and popular fantastic offerings Burn, Witch, Burn and The Day of the Triffids, among many others, and it's easy to see how this one got a bit overlooked. On top of that it was produced by a minor indie outfit, Britannia Films, who folded three years later after a short seven-year existence with other highlights including City of the Dead and the above-average remake The Hands of Orlac, with the even more minor and short-lived Beverly Pictures barely released it on American screens. Fortunately that means that anyone stumbling on the film now will come to it completely unspoiled for what is now a little diamond in the celluloid rough. The seaside town of Bristol has a surprisingly sparse history on film, but it gets one of its best showcases here as the setting for a twisty crime film based on the novel Sleep Long, My Love by American mystery writer Hillary Waugh, best known for the innovative 1952 procedural, Last Seen Wearing.... A young woman's body is discovered in a rented house on a remote stretch of beach during an investigation of a real estate office burglary, and it's up to Inspector Fellows (Jack Warner) and Sgt. Wilks (Ronald Lewis) to untangle a baffling web of clues tied to the house's possibly nonexistent owner, "John Campbell." Devoid of any big international stars, Jigsaw instead finds strength from the subdued but committed performances of its two detective leads. A veteran of superlative Ealing Films like The Ladykillers (1955), It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), and The Blue Lamp (1950), Jack Warner was a beloved fixture on British TV screens for two decades in the title role of Dixon of Dock Green, a popular crime series he always closed with the oft-quoted sign off, "Evenin' all." The younger Welsh-born Ronald Lewis was being groomed as a heartthrob at the time in a string of B-level adventures and dramas, with highlights including a memorable turn in one of Hammer's finest films, Scream of Fear (1960), and William Castle's much-loved gimmicky gothic, Mr. Sardonicus (1961). After this film and Billy Budd he was mainly seen in a long run of television roles before his untimely death in 1982, leaving behind a body of work that is still too often overlooked. However, the most recognizable name for film fans here is the main one behind the camera, director Val Guest. Initially a stage and screen actor himself, Guest became a director during World War II and enjoyed one of the most diverse, bizarre series of screen credits in British film history. His work with Hammer Films was key in getting it on track with early successes like The Quatermass Xperiment (1955, also starring Warner), The Abominable Snowman (1957), and the excellent Yesterday's Enemy (1959). By the time he made this film, Guest had broken away from the Hammer fold to become a director-producer with the memorable sci-fi offering The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) and the censor-baiting musical Expresso Bongo (1959). His biggest challenge was yet to come as an assistant director and general screen surgeon for the infamous Casino Royale (1967), which he followed up with the early Olivia Newton-John sci-fi musical Toomorrow (1970), the softcore comedy Au Pair Girls (1972), and a return to Hammer with When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970). An enthusiastic supporter of all of his features, Guest retired to California in the 1980s but made frequent appearances around Los Angeles for screenings of his titles until his death in 2006. Though he may be gone, you can find ample evidence of his passion for his craft in his finest films, a list on which this particular thriller certainly deserves to belong. By Nathaniel Thompson