Monday, February 15, 2010

Wings of Danger (1952)

Wings of Danger is probably one of the least Noirish Hammer Noirs. In actual fact one of the only Noir aspects is that this was filmed in BLACK and white... but so were tons of other productions in its time regardless of genre. And it has a hero experiencing a mental blackout which is a typical Noir motif but the one instance it occurs in this production it is clumsily handled and smacks of a cheap trick by writer John Gilling (also the director of Hammer classics such as Pirates of Blood River, The Scarlet Blade, The Brigand of Kandahar as well as The Plague of the Zombies, The Reptile and The Mummy's Shroud) to get the plot moving along.

This is a pretty straight forward thriller set very unusually in a rural airport in Guernsey depicting the unravelling of a ring of counterfeit smugglers.

Directed by Terence Fisher in one of his first Hammer assignments (The Last Page/Man Bait and Stolen Face are all from the same year) this is a straight forward story with a few nice lines of dialogue that makes up for an enjoyably short 70 minutes running time.

Nothing particularly memorable but worth checking out especially for the Hammer Fans interested in seeing more than just the usual Gothic horrors that the company is generally associated with.

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