Kill or Cure

Looking through my DVR to see what was on it that's available on DVD, I was somewhat surprised to see that the British movie Kill or Cure got a DVD release courtesy of the Warner Archives. But that's because, like the four Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple mysteries, it was made by MGM in the UK and distributed by them in America. So I watched it recently to do a post on here.

Terry-Thomas plays J. Barker-Rynde, a typically questionable Terry-Thomas character who in this case is both a photographer and a private investigator. One night he gets a call from Margaret Clifford, a wealthy but presumably eccentric woman who tells him to come down to Green Glades and investigate what's going on, for which he'll receive the princely sum of £75, which was quite a bit back in the early 1960s. But one he gets there, he's supposed to wait for her to contact him.

Barker-Rynde doesn't know what he's getting himself into, mostly because he doesn't know what Green Glades is. He goes to the bar, only to find there aren't any alcoholic drinks, but only these nasty-sounding vegetable-flavored drinks. It turns out that Green Glades is a health spa, or at least the sort of spa that was predicated on taking wealthy fat people and making them weigh less by separating them from their money through a bunch of dubious exercise machines.

Barker-Rynde doesn't have any place else to stay, so when Dr. Crossley (Dennis Price) examines him and declares him less than healthy, Barker-Rynde stayes there to be seen under the auspices of Rumbelow (Eric Sykes). Not that it's pleasant, as the first of the privations involves spending much of the day in an unheated chalet when not taking the various quack cures.

Eventually, Barker does get to see Mrs. Clifford. Except that she doesn't answer when he calls, and when he turns to face her, he finds that she's really most sincerely dead! She's been poisoned with ricin. And then Mrs. Clifford's secretary Frances Roitman (Moira Redmond) also turns up poisoned, although she'll survive, just having to spend some time recuperating and confined to a wheelchair when she does have the energy to get out of bed.

There are any number of suspects, and local police inspector Hook (Lionel Jeffries) is brought in to investigate. There's also a £2,000 reward for information leading to apprehending the person who killed Mrs. Clifford, so that really gets Barker to investigate, as does Rumbelow. They're at cross purposes at first, but eventually decide to team up. As Hook, he has someone he's investigating, not realizing that it's actually Barker, who is presumably quite innocent.

Terry-Thomas was always quite good at playing characters who seem less than completely on the up-and-up, and he's not bad in Kill or Cure. But this is minor material for him, as well as for British cinema. There's only mild laughs, and while it's not a bad movie, it's certainly not a memorably good one either. Some of the vintage look at fitness crazes may be of interest, as exercise equipment has come a long way in the past 60 years. But overall, I'd certainly recommend other Terry-Thomas movies before Kill or Cure.