A Lady Mislaid | |
---|---|
Directed by | David MacDonald |
Written by | Frederick Gotfurt |
Based on | A Lady Mislaid by Kenneth Horne |
Produced by | Robert Hall |
Starring | Phyllis Calvert Alan White Thorley Walters Gillian Owen |
Cinematography | Norman Warwick |
Edited by | Seymour Logie |
Music by | Sydney John Kay |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Associated British-Pathé (UK) |
Release date |
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Running time | 60 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
A Lady Mislaid is a 1958 British comedy film directed by David MacDonald and starring Phyllis Calvert, Alan White and Thorley Walters.[1][2] It was written by Frederick Gotfurt based on the 1948 play of the same name by Kenneth Horne.[3]
Esther and her sister Jennifer are spinsters. Esther has bought a remote country cottage, and has invited her novelist sister to stay for recuperation. Esther hasn't told Jennifer that a policeman had called, earlier, had explained that the police wanted to search the house and gardens for the body of the former owner's wife, and that she'd agreed. When a human skeleton is unearthed in the chicken coop, the finger of suspicion points firmly at the previous occupant, Mr. Smith.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "An attempt at a short comédie noire, thls film needs a more ruthless and macabre line in humour to exploit a promising situation. Conventional characters and a flagging plot produce, instead of the witty melodrama that might have emerged, a tame piece of make-believe."[4]
The Radio Times gave the film two out of five stars, writing: "A quaint idea and a decent cast make perfectly respectable entertainment out of an hour-long British programmer, but there's not much more to be said for it."[5]