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Tiger in the Smoke is a 1956 British crime film directed by Roy Ward Baker (billed as Roy Baker) and starring Donald Sinden, Muriel Pavlow, Tony Wright, Bernard Miles and Christopher Rhodes.[1] It is based on the 1952 novel The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham, although the film omits the principal character of Albert Campion. The film is set in a noirish smog-shrouded London and briefly in Brittany, France, and combines the genres of mystery, thriller, crime and drama. The cinematography was by Geoffrey Unsworth.[2][3]

Tiger in the Smoke
Directed by	Roy Ward Baker
Written by	Margery Allingham Anthony Pelissier
Produced by	Leslie Parkyn
Starring	Donald Sinden Muriel Pavlow Tony Wright Bernard Miles Christopher Rhodes
Cinematography	Geoffrey Unsworth
Edited by	John D. Guthridge
Music by	Malcolm Arnold
Production company	Rank Organisation
Distributed by	Rank Organisation
Release date	27 November 1956
Running time	94 minutes (United Kingdom)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Except for the omission of Campion, the film follows the plot of the book very closely.[4] It was shot at Pinewood Studios with sets designed by the art director Jack Maxsted.

Plot

Having been sent a picture of her husband, a war hero reported missing in action in France, Meg Elgin, now engaged to her fiancé Geoffrey Leavitt, is led to believe he is still alive and arranges a meeting at a London railway station. When she arrives there with the police accompanying her, she catches sight of a man in the distance wearing an old coat of her husband's. When he is pursued and captured, he turns out to be Duds Morrison, a former soldier and out-of-work actor recently let out of prison. He refuses to tell them anything, and having nothing they can charge him with, the police release him.

His interest aroused by the pictures sent to Meg, Leavitt follows Morrison and tries to question him about his sudden appearance masquerading as Meg’s dead husband. Morrison again refuses to talk, and tries to flee from Leavitt into an alley, but he is set upon by a group of street musicians who beat him to death, and also take Leavitt as a prisoner.

The musicians are ex-commandos and former comrades of Morrison, with whom they had served on a raid in Brittany in the war. The commander of the raid had been Meg's husband, Major Elgin. The men had been led to believe that Elgin knew about secreted treasure in a house in Brittany which he owned before the war, and they are desperate to get their hands on it. They want to find their former sergeant, named Jack Havoc, who has recently escaped from prison, committed several murders, and who they believe knows where the treasure is. They had attacked Morrison because they suspected he was an accomplice of Havoc, and then captured Leavitt believing he was Havoc.

Still wearing their old uniforms, they have spent the past few years carving out a living as street musicians, begging from passers by. Realising that releasing Leavitt might open them to being charged for the murder of Morrison, they bind him up and keep him as a prisoner. He is rescued later by a beat constable, sent by the CID to investigate the squat while the musicians are out.

Leavitt returns to Meg and together they head to Brittany to find the treasure, having learned of its location from a message left by Major Elgin. Havoc, having united with his former comrades and also learned of the treasure's location, also travels to France, where he angrily discovers that when Major Elgin had spoken of his ‘priceless’ treasure, he had been referring to its artistic beauty rather than its monetary worth: it is a small statue of the Madonna. He is apprehended in a confrontation on the nearby cliffs with Leavitt and the French police.

Cast

References

Bibliography

• Mayer, Geoff. Roy Ward Baker. Manchester University Press, 2004.

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