THE DIPLOMATIC CORPSE

UK, 1958, 65 minutes, Black-and-white.
Robin Bailey, Susan Shaw, Liam Redmond, Harry Fowler, Bill Shine, Charles Farrell.
Directed by Montgomery Tully.

A small-budget British supporting feature of the late 50s, blending the serious with touches of comedy.

Robin Bailey (successful on the British stage as Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady) is a crime journalist. Susan Shaw is the journalist working at the same paper, and the two are engaged. They are urged out by the editor to find some crime stories. When one comes in (and the audience has seen the crime), the journalist dismisses it.

However, there are quite some complications, the audience having seen a man tossing a briefcase onshore from a boat, his being coshed, the body pushed overboard, and a local spiv seeing everything and taking the briefcase. It turns out to contain 1000 pounds as well as heroin.

The police chief, Liam Redmond, checks with the journalist and various clues that each has begin to come together. There is also a visit from a phone operator working at an embassy. There are various visits to the embassy, diplomatic put-offs, Susan Shaw insinuating herself in the embassy as a substitute phone operator and becoming imprisoned.

With each development, it appears that a third secretary from the embassy was murdered, the spiv identifies the assistant at the embassy as the murderer and the spiv, picked up by the police, has concealed the heroine in the police car – which is later retrieved for an extradition sting to release Susan Shaw from the embassy.

There is a serious line with the embassy, the murder, drug dealing, cover-ups. There is also the kind of screwball comedy line with the two journalists and their interactions as well as dealings with the police inspector and his exasperation.

Old-fashioned, slight but pleasant.