Dear Murderer (1947) Plots Crime's Clever Course
Eric Portman does a murder, must frame another to clean his mess, and before long, everybody's dipped hands in blood. One of those perfect crime yarns where a dynamic open meets challenge of logicalfollow-through, the web closing round writers surely as it does on Portman and homicidal company. It all comes down to personal taste for unsolvable crime that convention dictates will be solved. Dialogue is smart and that sustains even where logic falters. Jack Warner investigates after dogged fashion of cases he'd sleuth on other Brit soundstages, he being realist face of law enforcement as opposed to eccentricity of Alastair Sim, who'd admittedly have been more fun had he probed Dear Murderer's case in guise of Inspector Cockrill. There is Dennis Price, pleading for life as Victim #1, and









