Reverend Simon Cherry has been a little overworked. Needing a rest he borrows a beat up old car from a friend of his and heads off to the country to visit his sister. Before he gets there his car breaks down. While on foot a storm comes up. The Reverend ends up at the Harling estate. The door is answered by the Harling’s butler Young (Ernest Butcher). He asks to use the phone to call a garage. When he can’t get through Lady Susan Harling (Courtney Hope) invites him to stay the night.
At the estate are Lady Harling’s daughters Monica Harling (Jeannette Tregarthen) and Lisa Colville (Zena Marshall). Lisa is an invalid due to an accident she had the year before. Lisa’s husband Alan Colville (Anthony Forwood) is at the house as well as a cousin Henry Dantry (John Bailey).
During the night Simon is restless and decides to smoke a pipe. Realizing he has left his pipe tobacco downstairs he goes to retrieve it. He hears a buzzer sound down in the parlor. Coming back upstairs he hears another one in the stairway. Lady Harling goes into Lisa’s room and screams.
When Simon goes into the room he finds Lisa dead. He also notices quite a few things. The items on her side table have been swept off except for a glass that had milk and powder residue in it. He also determines that Lisa had been dead for about an hour. Long before the buzzer was rung in her room.
Never being one to turn away from a mystery it’s up to Reverend Cherry to sort out the clues and find out who killed Lisa Colville.
“Meet Simon Cherry” was released in 1949 and was directed by Godfrey Grayson. It is an early British murder mystery produced by Hammer Productions. The film was based on a popular BBC radio program called “Meet the Rev”. When the film didn’t do too well Hammer abandoned the idea of making it a series. The film is on the obscure side.
As the story goes, Henry is in love with Lisa. Lisa’s husband Alan is in love with Monica. At least when he’s not having affairs with other women. According to Henry anyway. Alan, on the other hand says that Lisa is the one having affairs. It’s a bit soap opery with a couple flashbacks in different perspectives. There’s quite a bit of voice over so the film does seem like a radio show.
I wouldn’t call it an Old Dark House mystery even though it does happen in an old dark house. The only real old dark house element is the bad weather but that’s only a plot devise to get the reverend to the estate. As for the mystery part the only real mystery is who done it? The answer to that question was an interesting one. Everything else was unimpressive as far as acting and the story line goes. It’s not great and it’s not horrible. It’s just average but still worth a look.