A man walks into a darkened house. He closes the curtains before turning the lights on. If he is a burglar he is a strange one, for he doesn’t take anything. He just looks around. He seems especially interested in some old letters, and flower cards that say simply “Love Always.”

He is Lee Warren (Eric Portman) and he lives in this house with his wife Vivien (Greta Gynt). He’s been away in America for many months on business. Those love letters are not from him, but from Vivien’s lover Richard Fenton (Dennis Price)

Lee devises the perfect way to murder Fenton and make it look like suicide. Even better he tricks Fenton into writing a letter that makes it sound like he’s killed himself over Vivien’s unwillingness to divorce Lee.

He almost gets away with it, too. Trouble is, Vivien had already broken it off with Fenton before Lee had even come home. There was only a brief affair and Fenton would not have killed himself over her. In fact, Vivien already has a new lover, Jimmy Martin (Maxwell Reed). Lee devises a new plan, with a little work, he can make it appear that Jimmy murdered Fenton and it was he that made it look like a suicide.

As this is a movie made in 1947 and is a film noir you can probably guess how well this works out for him.

This is a very British noir. It has little of that biting, cynical dialogue that comes with so many American noirs. The exchanges here are more polite, but still cutting. At one point Lee notes that he rather likes Fenton and under different circumstances, they might become friends. Later, Lee has a second change of heart and sabotages his own perfect murder because of his own feelings.

It has that detached British feel to the filmmaking as well. Like the camera is just an observer and we are an audience watching these strange events occur without ever needing to feel anything about them.

That’s not to say that this isn’t good. I mean it isn’t great, but it is an enjoyable watch. Greta Gynt is especially fun as a sort-of femme fatale who uses men to suit her needs and has no other use for them. Consider it middle-shelf noir.