jamesraeburn2003 A psychotic killer, billed simply as 'The Man' (Harry H Corbett), is targeting the fashion models who appear on the front page of Wow magazine. Each body is discovered wearing the same costume, in the same pose and the same setting as they featured in the publication. Inspector Brunner (Victor Brooks) reluctantly agrees to allow the magazine's owner, John Mason (Spencer Teakle), run a series of articles covering the investigation. But, Mason is none too happy when the inspector succeeds in persuading his girlfriend, the showgirl June Rawson (Felicity Young), to be Wow's next cover girl in a bid to lead the murderer into a trap. However, he is a man of great cunning and spots it a mile off so June's life is put in serious danger...Like so many of the Butcher's studio's late fifties and sixties 'B' pictures, this was a regular feature on late night television (ITV) in the 1990's. I was attracted to it because of Harry H Corbett's casting as a serial killer and I set my video accordingly. Like millions of people, I was so used to seeing him play the long suffering son of Wilfred Brambell's rag and bone man in the timeless sitcom Steptoe And Son that I just had to see what he would be like playing a dramatic role in a straight thriller. After seeing it, I reached the conclusion that what he did he did magnificently neatly portraying his character's cunning, resourcefulness, intelligence and the way he tried so hard to conceal his unstable personality that looked as though it could break at any given moment. There's a great moment where he goes to see the inspector in disguise as a wealthy landlord who claims to have rented a property to the killer. "What did you think of him?", asks Brunner. Sensing the opportunity for a bit of self flattery, he replies "a man of high intelligence, well educated and of very decided views" to which Brunner replies "Well, he can be all of those things and still be a psychopath." At this stage, he only narrowly avoids giving himself away as the look on his face would have done had the inspector not had his back to him messing around with a filing cabinet. Hurt, he replies "The borderline between what we call insanity and a hypersensitive intellect are not always clear, inspector." The psychology regarding his motives for his crimes is arguably simplified - well, it is only a second feature, after all - but it is neatly summed up when he tells his intended victim that the inspector views him as a psychopath and says "If wanting to give man back his dignity to free him from the lustful images, which foul his mind and his sanity is madness - well, I suppose he's right." Yet, understandably, the actor did seem rather miscast but I thought that audiences who saw this prior to Steptoe And Son becoming a household name probably didn't think so because the star had not yet become so firmly identified in that part. In any case, fans of Harry H Corbett are bound to love it and, in fact, his atypical casting here adds to the fun.In every other respect, Cover Girl Killer is streets ahead of many British b-pics since it was directed by the talented Terry Bishop who generates some nail-biting suspense - especially at the climax. Brunner succeeds in getting June to pose as Wow's cover girl, but the killer does not fall for it and sees the police surrounding the theatre as he goes to make his move. So, he retreats and hires an out of work actor to impersonate him on the pretext that he is getting an audition at the theatre. The police arrest him thinking that their plan has gone like clockwork, but June is now in grave peril since he returns to the place late that night cornering her in her dressing room. But, will her boyfriend be sharp enough to realise that this poor, unfortunate actor is not the man? Spencer Teakle and Felicity Young are both more than competent in their roles as the young couple and anybody who saw them together in Butcher's The Gentle Trap (1960) as a safecracker and his girlfriend-accomplice will see the remarkable contrast with their very different roles here, which will make it easy for you to judge their acting talents. Victor Brooks is utterly convincing in his dogged police inspector part (he was a policeman in many a b-movie) and Gerald Gibbs' b/w cinematography heightens the tension with a good sense of place and atmosphere.Available on DVD with Terry Bishop's Life In Danger.

trimmerb1234 There are some surprisingly long well-informed reviews of this seemingly rather undistinguished 1959 British B. Those who might have seen it at that time are now all senior citizens. But for a few, perhaps a very few, such elderly gentlemen it evokes memories of their formative years like nothing else.If you had been a young person with an interest in photography you would have been aware of the publications safely tucked away on the top shelves of the newsagents shops - as appear in this film. Soho was then as now an exotic location well known for the fleshly pleasures including foreign foods. Indeed it was a basket of exotica quite unique in the entire UK. Oddly at the same time, it was the home of army surplus radio gear - all displayed on stalls outside the shops. It thus drew serious studious radio amateurs old and young to briefly share its busy notorious pavements with its more permanent and mostly female residents as well as passing rather furtive older gentlemen in raincoats and often bowler hats whose visit might only be slightly longer than that of the innocent old and young radio enthusiasts.By the standards on the 1950s, the above would be quite unsuitable for any kind of family publication or family conversation as it alludes to what was common knowledge but then a taboo topic in family contexts. Such were the dim and distant 1950s - made vivid again by this film whose makers clearly knew their market.Did I see it at the time? I'm not sure - it would have been at least an A possibly an X certificate. Yet Felicity Young seems oddly very familiar. Why was she so memorable? Not just because she was very good looking. I think because she was a classy ostensibly "nice" girl who did - remove her clothes, not all of course. In a world then firmly divided between nice girls who didn't and not nice girls who did, Felicity Young produced a thrilling confusion in a younger impressionable mind - apparently.It is a strange thing that less can be more. In such restricted times, very little could seem very much more.

Alanjackd This movie for me is very much a sweet and sour affair. One the one hand I think Steptoe and Son is the finest comedy ever but also I think if it would never have happened we could and should have seen Harry H Corbett as one of Britains finest actors. This gem of a movie takes all the naivety of days gone by with the age old story of a bad man who thinks the world is changing for the worse and depravity rules. Blitzed into just 60 odd minutes this was obviously made as a B movie but is a world above anything it was made to run alongside. If this was remade today it would have to be a gruesome 18 cert affair probably filmed in the seedy parts of London and involve drugs and prostitutes ( Harry Brown springs to mind)but the way they get the message across without so much as a grain of smut is incredible. Absolutely fantastic piece of movie making and seems as relative today as it was when made over 50 years ago.

kidboots Although done so much better in "Peeping Tom"(1960), "Cover Girl Killer" was an early attempt to delve into the sleazy adult entertainment world with sex magazines, strippers plying their trade and the unusual casting of Harry H. Corbett, an actor known more for his comedy roles. With his pebble glasses, odd isn't the word for his look but it showed that British films wanted to at least tackle some unsavoury contemporary themes and on the strength of this film, Corbett was given a few off-beat roles before he hit pay-dirt with "Steptoe and Son".The glasses were just part of his disguise as a nerdy photographer who lured buxom models to duplicate their cover poses from "Wow" magazine without being in the least suspicious. Meanwhile the flaky young magazine owner decides to boost his flagging sales (somehow no models want to be "Wow" cover girls now!!) by running a series on the "Cover Girl Killer". Lovely Christina Gregg played one of the victims - Miss Torquay. Gregg was beautiful in the Jean Simmons mode and really refined her acting technique from this early role as a shrill talking girl new to the modelling game. It's such a pity she didn't have a bigger career. Her part, small as it is, does further the narrative. All the other murders are done with a lethal injection of morphine but she starts to panic when the killer begins a tirade of "you are frightened to be alone with me but you parade your body before the world" etc, so she is strangled.Like all those "my brain is bigger than the whole of Scotland Yard" criminals, he visits the police - as a concerned landlord who is convinced he has let one of his flats to the notorious killer. With models prepared to be on a "Wow" cover completely dried up, the police organize for June, the magazine owner's girlfriend to be the cover girl bait but "the man" is one jump ahead and hires a lookalike to be a decoy - while the police think they have their man, "the man" is free to strike again!!Butcher's Films were started during the Boer War and was the oldest company still in film production after the Second World War. It's most popular film was "The Monkey's Paw" and while during the 1950s it had gone into television, by the early 1960s it had all but ceased production.