The Glass Tomb (1955) (aka: The Glass Cage) John Ireland, Honor Blackman, Geoffrey Keen, Eric Pohlmann, Sidney James Movie Review

The Glass Tomb (1955)   3/53/53/53/53/5


John Ireland and Sidney James in The Glass Tomb (1955) (aka: The Glass Cage)

An Inspector Lindley Mystery

'Pel' Pelham (John Ireland) has been in the carnival business for a long time and whilst not ashamed of what he does he wants more for his son and his wife Jenny (Honor Blackman). It is why Pel has visited his old friend Tony (Sidney James), a bookie, for a loan so that he can put on a show involving Henri Sapolio (Eric Pohlmann), a professional "starving man" in a stunt to break his own 65 day world record. Tony has issues himself as a former girlfriend won't leave him alone and is trying to blackmail him. After securing some land to build the show on, including a glass cage for Sapolio to stay in for the crowds to observe, Sapolio and his wife decide to throw a party. Unfortunately the girl who is trying to blackmail Tony is murdered in the flat up stairs and both Pel and Tony find themselves suspects in Inspector Lindley's (Liam Redmond) investigation whilst Sapolio may have seen the killer enter her room.

"The Glass Tomb", once known as "The Glass Cage", is one of those movies which you think is just going to be a 59 minute style noir as we have a woman who is murdered and two innocent men who are connected finding themselves the focus of the investigation. But this is a movie with more than one murder as blackmail and greed fill the storyline with various threats and dark confrontations going on. Unfortunately whilst it makes for a movie with a fair few twists and turns it never really amounts to much. In fact what is more entertaining is the whole deception of a freak show with fake publicity and so on.

Beyond the twists and turns as well as some funny one liners, including a mum telling her boy to turn around and watch the man starve, there isn't much more to say. John Ireland delivers a solid performance but the character of Pel is not that memorable and other than that there are a few famous faces such as Honor Blackman, Sidney James and Eric Pohlmann but like with the character of Pel none of their characters are anything special although Eric Pohlmann certainly explores the humour of his starving man character.

What this all boils down to is that "The Glass Tomb" is now one of those movies which people like me, movie nuts, will watch as it doesn't have a great deal going for it but it is another one to be added to that never ending list of movies watched.


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