Mr. Denning Drives North

Lies beget more lies in Anthony Kimmins’ unsatisfyingly titled Mr. Denning Drives North, which stars John Mills as a protective father who gets trapped in a murder cover-up where the corpse always seems to be one step ahead of him. Following the unusual opening credits which are read aloud by a third-party narrator, we encounter aviation engineer Tom Denning (Mills) in the midst of some sort of emotional crisis which leads not only to nightmares but very close to a dramatic suicide attempt while in the pilot’s seat. When his wife Kay (Phyllis Calvert) finally cajoles him to open up, Denning confesses via flashback that he’s accidentally killed the sleazy Mados (Herbert Lom), the boyfriend of their daughter Liz (Eileen Moore) while Denning was trying to pay him off to go away. When Denning and Kay go to visit the body, however, it’s gone. And so is the ring Denning had placed on its finger as a decoy, which will later show up in the possession of a deaf gypsy woman. Things just get more complicated from there, Alec Copell’s script, based on his own novel published the previous year, pushing the limits of believability without every tipping over. The film maintains tension throughout thanks in large part to Mills’ performance and a generous number of noir-pitched sequences where Denning toils to cover his tracks, often with flashlight in hand.