The Last Page

I didn't mean to do two British pictures back to back, as I like to vary genres, eras, and stars as much as possible depending as well as what's coming up on TV. But thanks to being busy the past couple of weekends, I was looking for something short on my DVR that's also available on DVD, and that led to my picking Man Bait from Diana Dors' day in Summer Under the Stars.

Dors gets an "introducing" credit here despite having been in over a dozen movies in the preceding five years; the nominal star is George Brent, this apparently being one of those British movies where the producers thought getting an aging Hollywood star would make getting distribution in the US easier. (The Man Bait title was also for US distribution; the original title was The Last Page.)

Brent plays John Harman, manager of a London bookstore where Dors' character, Ruby Bruce works. Ruby, however, isn't exactly the best worker since she keeps showing up late. One day at work, she catches a customer named Jeffrey Hart (Peter Reynolds) trying to get into a cabinet to take a rare book. Rather than reporting Hart to her boss, Ruby decides that since he puts the book back, there's nothing more to go after. Jeffrey, meanwhile, invites Ruby to the club where he's a member.

Harman's life is more complicated. He's got an invalid wife, but has been able to cash in an insurance policy that will enable her to get treatment in Sweden. Meanwhile, not having been able to get any physical pleasure from that invalid wife, he's been seeing one of his employees, Stella (Marguerite Chapman), who had tended to him while he was in a military hospital during the war.

Anyhow, Harman asks Ruby to stay late after work to get some shipments inventoried and out. Ruby accidentally rips her blouse on a filing cabinet, and Harman offers £3 for a new one, a princely sum for a shop clerk like Ruby in the early 1950s. The encounter also results in Ruby getting kissed by Harman. But when Ruby meets Jeffrey at the club and tells him what happened, he gets bigger ideas in his head. Seeing that a married man kissed one of his employees, this would be a good time for said employee to start blackmailing the boss for much bigger sums -- and as we know Harman has several hundred pounds from that insurance policy.

Ruby isn't happy with the arrangement but feels threatened and needs the money. She writes a letter to Mrs. Harman, and when Mrs. Harman receives the letter, she tries to get out of bed to burn it, which results in her having a heart attack or something that kills her. That's bad enough for Harman, but there's worse to come.

Jeffrey meets Ruby in the shop after hours one evening, trying to get his share of the £100 that was the plan for Ruby to blackmail from Harman. But Harman no longer having need of the insurance money and being pissed with Ruby, he just throws a giant wad of cash at Ruby, well over the £100 she wanted. Jeffrey finds out there's more, and when Harman comes downstairs to investigate, Jeffrey tries to shut Ruby up, strangling her to death in the process.

Ruby's disappearance is noted, and eventually her body is found in a shipping crate that was supposed to be full of books Harman was shipping to himself, so he realizes he's not the chief suspect in the murder of Ruby. As so often happens in these B movie mysteries, the suspect (who we of course know is innocent) has to try to prove his own innocence with the police hot on his tail. At least he's got a woman in Stella trying to help him.

Man Bait is certainly watchable, although I don't think it's as good as another British movie from the time with similar themes, Home at Seven. Brent isn't nearly as good an actor as Ralph Richardson, and the whole blackmail plot doesn't make much sense, since Ruby has no real reason to blackmail Harman.

Dors, for her part, does a more than adequate job, and as an American it's always interesting to see these decidedly non-prestige British movies. Despite the movie's flaws, Man Bait is definitely more than worth a watch. It's on a standalone DVD as well as a box set of Hammer noir.