Take My Life

Nicholas, husband of the opera singer Philippa, is accused of murdering a woman he once knew. The evidence is against him and he has nothing to offer in his defence. Philippa starts investigating on her own to clear him, and the trail leads to a school in Scotland, a music notebook and someone who works there. The film is not interested in the trial. It is interested in a woman running her own investigation: every advance is Philippa's and the police stay behind events. An unusual structure for the period. The form is British noir: shadowed images, train journeys, an opera stage and a dark school building at the end. The tension is built with music, and the killer's trace is a melody. It is Ronald Neame's first film as director. He had worked until then as a cinematographer and producer, and the screenplay draws on Winston Graham's novel. Greta Gynt plays Philippa, Hugh Williams her husband and Marius Goring the music master at the school. Who it is for: viewers who like forties British thrillers and mysteries built on music. Who it is not for: anyone after logic. There are too many coincidences, the police are useless and the resolution arrives quickly.