Venetian Bird (1952)

Richard Todd is PI "Mercer" who is sent to Venice by a grateful French insurer to track down a man whom they want to reward for his sterling service during WWII. On arrival, however, things start to go seriously pear shaped, corpses abound and soon he must stay one step ahead of traitors and police alike as he tries to fathom out what's going on - and to save his own bacon. Despite a cast including a glamorous but rather static Eva Bartok ("Adriana"); an efficient George Coulouris as the dodgy Police chief "Spadoni" and an oddly cast John Gregson ("Uccello") this film doesn't really catch fire. Maybe it's the fallibility of the underlying premiss, or the really stilted performance of Todd - either way, it doesn't really go anywhere for much of it's 95 minutes and but for quite an exciting rooftop chase near the end, would probably sink without trace. The writing and direction needed much more pace, the story isn't developed nearly so much as it could have been and I was sadly disappointed by the rather meagre end product.