Mr. Denning Drives North

Australian writer Alec Coppel adapted this tight little thriller from his novel of the same name. The film stars John Mills in the title role as a well-to-do aircraft manufacturer who accidentally kills the shady boyfriend of his precious and ingenious daughter.

Curiously the film does not start with the usual opening credits, instead they are narrated. A distressed Mr. Tom Denning (J. Mills) loses his concentration whilst test-flying one of his company’s aircrafts and only narrowly survives the ensuing crash. Back home the tortured soul reveals the reason for his severe distress to his ever-loving and loyal wife Kay (Phyllis Calvert) and via flashback we and she find out that Tom has committed murder, albeit accidentally. It emerges that upon learning of his daughter Liz’ (Eileen Moore) engagement to the highly dubious Mados (Herbert Lom) he needs to take matters into his own hands in order to break up the romance. Visiting Mados in his flat, Tom Denning offers his a substantial amount of money fr him to leave the country, or else he will have him deported. At first, Mados appears to agree, but swine that he is (remember this is set in 1951) indicates that he may already have ‘had’ her. This enrages Denning who then chins Mados who falls and hits his head – dying as a result of the blow. Mr. Denning now has a problem to deal with, and it is a big one! Finding a newspaper in Mado’s room he gets the idea that he will disguise the corpse and dump it in a ditch. First, however, he sees to the fact that the corpse is dressed in old clothes which Denning happens to have in his own garage. Having loaded him previously into the back of his Rolls Royce, Denning drives North (hence the title) with the intention of dumping Mado. There he puts an old garish ring which he won years ago on the dead man’s finger in order to mislead anybody finding the corpse as to the man’s true identity. Weeks pass and no report of a missing person or a body found in a ditch has come to light and understandably Denning becomes increasingly unnerved…

Every time we think that poor old Denning is out of the loop there is yet another twist and a turn and he finds himself back in it again. Things become even more complicated when his daughter, not one to be left on the shelf, finds herself a new boyfriend. Would you believe it, this time she has picked a thoroughly decent egg (Sam Wanamaker) who just happens to be a lawyer…. who just happens to find himself defending a gypsy who has been accused of murdering guess who!

A strong performance by the versatile John Mills is occasionally dampened by Phyllis Calvert’s to-good-to-be-true and irksome dutiful wife.
Anthony Kimmins pacey direction keeps us on our feet throughout and the film further benefits from composer Benjamin Frankel’s very appropriate score.

SPECIAL FEATURES on this DVD release are:

• Image Gallery
• Promotional material in PDF format