A showman goes straight with a Starvation Act, displaying a man who will go 70 days without eating locked inside a glass cage, but unfortunately the incarcerated carny cheats by ingesting a mouthful of strychnine! Montgomery Tully deftly directs this Tod Browning-like tale of absurdity on the Midway, a strange concoction of film noir and freak-show integrants.
Pel Pelham (John Ireland) supports his nuclear family by promoting sideshows, a carny who left the racket behind and now goes it straight and narrow. He gets a call from his shady past in the form of Tony Lewis (Sid James) and is asked to look into a little feminine blackmail situation Tony is suffering from. Nothing rough, mind you, but just talk to her. Tony gifts Pel a nice fat check to help him with the startup cost of his new venture. Coincidentally, this femme isn’t so fatale after all and is the daughter of Pel’s mentor, and she’s living a floor above Sapolio, the man who starves himself for food money. So, Pel can kill two birds with one stone, metaphorically. Pel visits Rena Maroni (Tonia Bern) but she’s not keen on blackmail and just wanted to tell Tony so long, and thanks for all of the fish. She’s not a bad kid. When Pel and Sapolio throw a huge party for the carny gang, Rena ends up in a big sleep and Scotland Yard is hot on the case.
The film isn’t a whodunit as that's revealed in the first act; it’s concerned with catching the real killer and builds a modicum of suspense. Journeyman DP Walter J. Harvey shows some inspiration, utilizing low angle compositions and low-key lighting, allowing flashing lights through dirty windows to illuminate a murder scene. Tully also utilizes some location filming in bombed out portions of London and it’s historically interesting! The acting is fine, and John Ireland is not too shabby as a barker (seems he had some real-life experience). The story is sprinkled with humor, from the snot nosed kid at the Midway to Pel’s own child devouring the contents of the refrigerator, a picnic spread on the kitchen floor. The story may not make much sense in the final act as the killer, afraid he’ll be caught for Rena’s murder, commits an even more obvious one...in public! And the story leaves one loose end dangling as another killer is never brought to Justice. However, Pel decides to honor Sapolio in the most freakish way possible: he displays his dead body as a paying attraction! Fucking brilliant.
Final Grade: (B)
