The Dark Stairway

Typical B movie fodder, but I love 'em as it's nice to have a start, a finish and a bit in the middle, with a neat twist at the end.

Edgar Lustgarten narrates this tale involving the murder of an old lag called Harry Carpenter.

Carpenter had previous at it was not for presenting Sportsnight. A woman saw a man in dark glasses near the dead man's body.

The police find out that Carpenter had once squealed on a man called Joe Lloyd in order to get a shorter prison sentence. Lloyd has recently been released from prison but nothing links him with the murder of Carpenter.

When the policeman find the man with the dark glasses they discover he is blind. Can he really be a reliable witness?

This is an entertaining B movie short. It does have a noirish feel with several people having some kind of mid atlantic accents.A sudden confession was a tad convenient though.

The review headed 'Thriller with B Movie stalwarts' must have been reviewing a different episode of Scotland Yard...Russell Napier does lead the cast list, this time as Inspector Harmer, and Vincent Ball is his assistant Sgt Gifford...the villain Joe Lloyd is played by Edwin Richfield...more typical Merton Park formulaic output, but very watchable if you enjoy 'that sort of thing', as I do.

Small time criminal Harry Carpenter is killed on the streets of Soho, a woman spots a blind man leaving the scene of the crime, Inspector Napier begins a search for the man, who could well hold the vital clue.

For a short and a so called b movie, this was rather good, a really interesting, well plotted storyline, and some really great visuals, very much in the noir style.

I loved the way that Edgar Lustgarten introduced Soho as .... interesting, but not too bad, I'd love to know what he'd make of it now.

Some imaginative techniques used in the visuals, for 1954, this was way ahead of its time, it's surprisingly striking looking. The lineup scene was so well shot.

It's always interesting to see the way attitudes have changed, the way Napier treats George Benson is rather interesting to say the least.

Always good to see a young Vincent Ball, who played Sergeant Gifford, what a smart guy.

One of the best I've seen so far.

8/10.

One of the things about Merton Park's series was the amount of employment given to leading actors. The main example was Russell Napier as Chief Inspector Duggan, and Vincent Ball as a series of villains. This episode had no Napier, but Ball makes a convincingly tooth-clenching villain, even if he does not have much to do.