''Devil's Bait'' is a 1959 black and white British

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Peter Graham Scott Peter Graham Scott (27 October 1923 – 5 August 2007) was an English television producer, television and film producer, television director, film director, Film editing, film editor and screenwriter. He was one of the producers and directors wh ...

and starring

Geoffrey Keen Geoffrey Keen (21 August 1916 – 3 November 2005) was an English actor who appeared in supporting roles in many films. He is well known for playing British Defence Minister Sir Frederick Gray in the ''James Bond'' films. Biography Early li ...

Jane Hylton Jane Hylton (16 July 1926 – 28 February 1979, born as Audrey Gwendolene Clark) was an English actress who accumulated 30 film credits, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, before moving into television work in the latter half of her career in the ...

and Gordon Jackson.Chibnall & McFarlane, pp. 274-76. It was a

second feature A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double featur ...

, made for release by the

Rank Organisation The Rank Organisation was a British entertainment conglomerate founded by industrialist J. Arthur Rank in April 1937. It quickly became the largest and most vertically integrated film company in the United Kingdom, owning production, distribu ...

Plot

Joe Frisby calls Dr Mack at the town hall to make another complaint about rats eating his flour. Although the Dr says the council rat catchers are on honeymoon, the telephone exchange girl decides to give Frisby a lead on a cheap rat-catcher. He is put in touch with Mr Love, who has no qualifications whatsoever. Love improvises on his container for mixing his rat poison by using a loaf tin. Luckily (for the plot) this is very distinctive, with a side split which causes the bread to be mis-shapen. When Mrs Frisby runs out of intact loaf tins she is forced to use the split tin and inadvertently creates a poisoned loaf. Love drinks his payment and is killed in an accident as he staggers home. He is found by a railway driver the next morning. His landlady tells the police that he was carrying

cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...

. The landlady tells the police he used it at Frisby's bakery. However Frisby having found the empty cyanide bottle has already decided this could ruin the bakery and he denies any involvement. Mrs Frisby smells the cyanide in the empty tin and starts trying to call people. The film then follows the progress of the loaf, the tension being will it be eaten or not. A baby at a picnic seems the likely victim but a radio announcement alerts his mother and only a duck in the pond is killed by the bread.

Main cast

as Joe Frisby *

as Ellen Frisby * Gordon Jackson as Sergeant Malcolm the local policeman *

Dermot Kelly James Dermot Kelly (21 April 1917 – 25 November 2004) was an Irish sports shooter. He competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics and the 1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and c ...

as Mr. Love * Shirley Lawrence as Shirley *

Eileen Moore Eileen Moore (born August 1932 in London, England) is a British actress. She is best known as Sheila in the film ''An Inspector Calls''. Life Moore was born in London in August 1932. She was married to actor George Cole from 1954 until their divo ...

as Barbara *

Molly Urquhart Molly Sinclair Urquhart (6 January 1906 – 6 October 1977) was a Scottish actress and theater director. Early life Urquhart was born in Glasgow as Mary Sinclair Urquhart. She was the daughter of post office clerk Ann McCallum and sea-going e ...

as Mrs. Tanner - Love's landlady *

Noel Hood Margaret Noel Hood (25 December 1909 – 15 October 1979) was a British actress. She was married to the Irish-born actor Charles Oliver. Filmography Film * ''Crook's Tour'' (1940) as Edith Charters * ''Personal Affair'' (1953) as 4th Gossip (u ...

as Mrs. Evans *

Rupert Davies Rupert Davies FRSA (22 May 191622 November 1976) was a British actor. He is best remembered for playing the title role in the BBC's 1960s television adaptation of ''Maigret'', based on Georges Simenon's novels. Life and career Military serv ...

as Landlord

Production

The film was made at

Beaconsfield Studios Beaconsfield Film Studios is a British television and film studio in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. The studios were operational as a production site for films in 1922, and continued producing films - and, later, TV shows - until the 1960s. Bri ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

, England, and on location. A collection of then-and-now location stills and corresponding contemporary photographs is hosted at reelstreets.com.

Critical assessment

''Devil's Bait'' was selected by the film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane as one of the 15 most meritorious British B films made between

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and 1970. They note its narrative command and tension and the way the film moves forward "to a satisfyingly taut end – and one which leaves both narrative and character interests gratified". They particularly praise the two central performances: "The excellent performances of Hylton and Keen create a wholly convincing sense of two people whose relationship is under the strain of everyday irritations and who are imperceptibly drawn closer by the near disaster in which they are caught up."

References

Bibliography

* Chibnall, Steve & Brian McFarlane, ''The British 'B' Film'', Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2009.

External links

* 1959 films British drama films 1959 drama films Films directed by Peter Graham Scott 1950s English-language films 1950s British films {{1950s-UK-film-stub