BLACK ORCHID

UK, 1953, 58 minutes, Black and white.
Ronald Howard, Olga Edwardes, John Bentley, Mary Laura Wood, Patrick Barr, Sheila Burrell.
Directed by Charles Saunders.

Black Orchid starts as a domestic drama, with the self-centred wife who has no interest in her doctor husband’s work and research. They have remained together for 10 years but she is restless. The younger sister right from South Africa, Rye and assists the doctor in his work; they are attracted…

The wife then decides she will give her husband a divorce and receives a hefty settlement and decides to travel to South Africa. It is discovered that she is travelling with a male companion.

Just as she is about to leave, she is killed in an accident on the street after becoming dizzy – and it emerges that she has been poisoned.

The doctor had been prepared to marry his sister-in-law but discovers from his lawyer that this is forbidden by British law. With the death of his wife, and his ability to marry his sister-in-law, everything points to him and he is arrested, tried and imprisoned.

In the meantime, his friend Eric, novelist, teams up with the sister-in-law and they decide to investigate for themselves, discovering the name of the companion on the voyage, and that he had cancelled.

Earlier in the picture there was Eric’s publisher who had been at a party at the doctor’s home. He makes some remarks to Eric about the situation – and Eric becomes suspicious, travels to the publisher’s home, interviews his wife, discovers the truth. The publisher arrives, threatens. He is a horticultural expert and has been cultivating black orchids which last only a short time. It emerges that the wife had visited him before the travels, that he was the companion expected to go with her, that he decided to break the connection and gave her the black orchid which killed her.

Not too bad within 58 minutes.