INSPECTOR HORNLEIGH ON HOLIDAY

UK, 1939, 77 minutes, Black-and-white.
Gordon Harker, Alastair Sim, Linden Travers, Wally Patch, Edward Chapman, Philip Leaver, Kynaston Reeves.
Directed by Walter Forde.

In 1939, Gordon Harker starred in the first of three films as Inspector Hornleigh. Alastair Sim was his put-upon assistant, Bingham. They made an entertaining duo.

There was a murder mystery, investigations, Hornleigh making his mark, though Gordon Harker was much better as his disguises that his straightforward Inspector. And, Alastair Sim, could conduct a masterclass with all his different facial expressions.

This film opens with them at Brighton, in a hotel, the weather raining. They encounter a military man who challenges them to pool, wins everything, but has to hurry away because of an important contact. There is a car crash over a cliff and the military man’s body is burned in the wreck.

The local police begin their investigation, with Hornleigh and Bingham called as witnesses. Eventually, they are revealed, not as undertakers on holiday, but from Scotland Yard and the investigation begins.

There is a connection with a country estate, the death of the owner, the reading of his will. There is upset because a lady who owns a shop and looked after him receives all his money and the house. His alleged cousin, Linden Travers, is upset with her bequest. Only turns up at the reading of the Will.

As the case unfolds, it becomes quite complex. There is again a gang who infiltrate hospitals, insure people who are dying, substitute other bodies for their burial. They are controlled by a boss who communicates by radio. In order to solve the case, Bingham has to go as a patient to hospital to unmask the perpetrators. There are some comic moments, especially as Hornleigh poses as an expert doctor with all kinds of technical gobbledygook.

The disappointment of the film is that there is no sudden unmasking of a suspect as the chief criminal.