Uneasy Terms | |
---|---|
Directed by | Vernon Sewell |
Written by | Peter Cheyney |
Based on | novel Uneasy Terms by Peter Cheyney |
Produced by | Louis H. Jackson |
Starring | Michael Rennie Moira Lister Faith Brook |
Cinematography | Ernest Palmer |
Edited by | Monica Kimick |
Music by | Hans May |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Pathé Pictures International (UK) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 91 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Uneasy Terms is a 1948 British crime thriller film directed by Vernon Sewell and starring Michael Rennie, Moira Lister and Faith Brook.[1] It is based on the 1946 novel of the same name by Peter Cheyney.[2]
Slim Callaghan is a private eye whose client, Colonel Stenhurst, is murdered, leaving behind a trail of suspects. Viola, the eldest of the Colonel's three stepdaughters, is the prime suspect, but after wading through clues and romance, Callaghan corners the real culprit.[3]
Cheyney was a best selling author at the time. Vernon Sewell wanted to make a film of Cheyney's Dark Duet but was assigned this instead. He said Cheyney " had complete charge of casting and costumes, and script of course. He had choice of the world's stars." Sewell says Cheyney insisted on Michael Rennie who the director thought "wasn't right for it". He said Cheyney also did not write the script. "I'm left on the, sometimes on the set with no script at all! Michael Rennie and I had to sit down and write the very next day's work! The film was pretty awful."[4]
Sewell said when the film opened Cheyney insisted it would get good reviews "because the press daren't knock me!" but the reviews were bad. "And then he died! So we never made any more. That was the one Peter Cheyney film ever made. No one has made one since. Poor old Peter."[4]