James Bradley is a world-famous trumpet player who really digs the London jazz scene but may just get buried by it! Terence Fisher and DP Walter Harvey just point the camera and go, allowing Alex Nicol as the musician James Bradley to blow his own horn once too often, investing his character with a smarmy resilience. Is this a one-man comedy act or a noir murder mystery?
The film opens with Bradley (Brad, from here on out) and his orchestra bebopping to a packed house in London’s Palladium. He bails on the after-concert party (he doesn’t dig that scene), and by chance is lured by a siren’s song echoing down a crowded street. He hooks up with this bluesy siren Maxine (Ann Hanslip) and she promises to make a spaghetti dinner for the two of them...at 2 in the morning! When Brad exits a few hours later after a wholesome liaison, he’s surprised to wake up with police detectives hovering over his bed. Maxine was murdered and he’s the person of interest! The next 70 minutes or so involve Brad, a musician whose livelihood and creative outlet are in the use of his hands, get involved in multiple fistfights. Hell, he even dukes it out with a jazz pianist who doesn’t seem to care much about his own hands either. The convoluted story makes little sense as the story unwinds because Terence Fisher doesn’t know how to create tension or suspense; instead of giving the audience information hidden from Brad so we can root for him to uncover the killer or get some cheap thrills as he edges closer towards doom, Fisher gives Brad information not shared with the audience until the final minutes! Ha! So, the whole finale after the poisoned mouthpiece, which should have been a nice piece of suspense, is just Brad telling the police he discovered the killer’s identity so they round-up all of the suspects. The resulting mayhem is absurd.
What really makes this film kick and feel alive is the jazz score full of diegetic music, as Alex Nicol as our protagonist mimics some killer trumpet solos played by legend Kenny Baker. The music is worth more than the price of admission to this tepid, unintentionally hilarious non-thriller. And it should be noted that there is no fucking black glove anywhere in this story.
Final Grade: (C)
