THE BLACK GLOVE (AKA FACE THE MUSIC)

 

This is another early 1950s Hammer film directed by Terence Fisher. THE BLACK GLOVE was the American title of the film, and the title of the version I saw on the Tubi streaming channel. The British title, FACE THE MUSIC, is far more appropriate. 

Alex Nicol is the imported American star this time for Hammer. He plays James Bradley, a trumpeter and bandleader playing a stint in London. After a show Bradley makes the acquaintance of a nightclub singer named Maxine (Ann Hanslip). Bradley has a meal at Ann's flat, then goes back to his hotel room for some much needed rest. He wakes up in the morning to find out that Ann has been murdered, and since he left his trumpet in her flat, he's become a prime suspect. Bradley decides to try and find the killer on his own, and his investigations lead him to a few shady characters. 

THE BLACK GLOVE (released in 1954) has more music than action scenes. At least the music (in the horn-heavy big-band style of the period) is very good, with trumpeter Kenny Baker doubling for Nicol on the soundtrack. (Producer Michael Carreras was a big jazz fan and even has a cameo in the film as a band member.) 

The use of music does make this movie stand out from the many other low-budget crime stories made by Hammer in the early Fifties. What it doesn't do is make the story's murder mystery any more thrilling. Alex Nicol's Bradley is a murder suspect, but he's not desperately on the run. He's also not a broken-down musician--he's famous and successful, headlining a show at the London Palladium. Alex Nicol plays Bradley in a somewhat breezy manner, negating the suspense the movie tries to have. 

Terence Fisher tries at times to inject some seedy atmosphere in the tale, but the story isn't hard-boiled enough, despite Nicol at times narrating the film like a noir anti-hero. The climax is like the final chapter of an Agatha Christie novel, with Bradley in a room with all the various suspects. The trumpeter then shows some amazing deductive ability by revealing who the killer is and what all the suspects have to hide. After seeing this sequence one wonders why Bradley doesn't put down his trumpet and put on a deerstalker. 

Eleanor Summerfield, who was in a number of Terence Fisher-directed films around this time, plays Maxine's sister. Geoffrey Keen. best known for playing a number of haughty British characters, has a very atypical (for him) role here. Hammer fans will recognize Fred Johnson (THE BRIDES OF DRACULA) as a police inspector and Melvyn Hayes, who was the young Baron in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-him cameo as a bellhop. 

Americans must have felt from the poster above that THE BLACK GLOVE was a hard-edged crime thriller. It's not...it's more of a few strange days in the life of a popular bandleader.