It all boils down to why not who or when
***SPOILERS*** Clever Rashomon-like British film involving fortune-teller Madam Aster who was found strangled in her flat in an obvious crime of passion by someone she may not have been that passionate with.With policemen Supt. Lodge and his partner Inspt. Butler called on the scene they check out all the clues to Madam Aster's murder and come up with five suspects. As the movie goes on we get statements, and flashbacks, from the five suspects in Madam Aster's murder that all contradict each other. It becomes very apparent to both Lodge & Butler that Madam Aster had deeply offended everyone of the five persons suspected of murdering her. The trick is who of those that she offended was driven to the point of killing her! There's Madam Aster's landlady, and suspect #1, Mrs Finch who didn't like the company that she kept in her apartment that included, suspect# 2, double-talking BS artist and carnival mind reader Bob Baker. It was Baker who left Madam Aster for her far more attractive sister, and suspect #3, Catherine Taylor after she threw him out of her apartment! We, as well as Supt. Lodge & Inspt. Butler, can't leave out the kindly neighborhood "Mr. Fix It All", and suspect #4, Albert Pollard. The meek and always available Pollard was always trying to get the much younger Madam Aster to fall for him and, with both Pollard and Madam Aster still married, become his sex slave or live-in lover. All that the frustrated Pollard ever got from her, for his noble and unselfish services, was nothing more then a handshake smile and thank you!
And finally we come to the insanely jealous rummy and bar-room brawler, as well as suspect #5, Sailor Mike Murray who wherever he went violence always followed. Sailor Mike went nuts when he showed up unexpectedly at Madam Aster's apartment, after being out at sea for three months, and finding her with an other man! Throwing Madam Aster's boyfriend, or possible John, down a fight of stairs a fired up Sailor Mike then checked out and got himself juiced up in a local ginmill. With Sailor Mike coming on the scene after Madam Aster's body was discovered by the police was that his way to show that he was innocent of murdering her or him just playing ignorant in order to throw the police off his tail!
***SPOILERS*** It's Supt Lodge who finally cracks the case not by having the evidence lead him to Madam Aster's murderer but the murderer him or herself unknowingly doing the job for him!
score 7/10
sol-kay 3 November 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2152024/35355
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