''The Last Man to Hang?'' (Australia and New Zealand title: ''The Amazing Daphne Strood'') is a 1956

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

film directed by

Terence Fisher Terence Fisher (23 February 1904 – 18 June 1980) was a British film director best known for his work for Hammer Film Productions, Hammer Films. He was the first to bring gothic horror alive in full colour, and the sexual overtones and explic ...

and starring

Tom Conway Tom Conway (born Thomas Charles Sanders; 15 September 1904 – 22 April 1967) was a British film, television, and radio actor. He is remembered for playing suave adventurer The Falcon in a series of 1940s films; and his appearances in three h ...

and

Elizabeth Sellars Elizabeth Macdonald Sellars (6 May 1921 – 30 December 2019) was a Scottish actress. Early life and education Sellars was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the daughter of Stephen Sellars and Jean Sutherland. She appeared on the stage from the age o ...

. It was produced by John Gossage for Act Films Ltd.

Plot

Music critic Sir Roderick Strood is having an affair with a beautiful singer, Elizabeth Anders. In a storyline which appears partly in flashback and partly in real time, his wife Daphne refuses to give him a divorce and subsequently tries to shoot herself, but after apparently becoming reconciled to the situation tells Roderick to leave the country with the singer and that she shall see him on the other side. Sir Roderick gives his wife a strong sedative, given him by his mistress, not knowing that his wife's housekeeper, Mrs Tucker, has already given her a sedative. Daphne apparently dies of an overdose, though an early scene of her arrival at hospital has in fact made it clear that she is still alive, and that Mrs Tucker has deliberately mis-identified the body of another woman, brought to hospital at the same time, as Daphne's. Stopped at the airport Sir Roderick says "I've killed her" and is arrested and charged with murder. A jury must decide whether Sir Roderick poisoned his wife deliberately, or whether her death was accidental. Several references to the debate about the abolition of capital punishment that was going on in British society in the 1950s are made. One protracted jury room scene recalls the play for television ''

Twelve Angry Men ''Twelve Angry Men'' is an American courtroom drama written by Reginald Rose about the deliberations of a jury at a homicide trial. It was broadcast initially as a television play in 1954. It was adapted for the stage the following year, and ...

'', which had been shown on US TV in 1954. The trial focuses on the semantic difference between "I've killed her" and "I killed her", and on the question of whether Sir Roderick could have heard Mrs Tucker's voice, warning him not to give his wife a sedative as she had already done so, through a closed door. A demonstration that he might not have heard the housekeeper is enough to convince the jury and he is found not guilty. Following the trial Sir Roderick returns home, but Mrs Tucker, despite having made every attempt to have Sir Roderick convicted and hanged, now admits that she knew he had not killed his wife as she is not dead. Having heard Roderick confess in the witness box that he still loved his wife and not Elizabeth, Mrs Tucker takes him to his wife (hiding in a large country cottage) where the police, whom Mrs Tucker has tipped off, wait outside to arrest the housekeeper for perjury.

Historical note

The film was released in August 1956. Nobody was hanged in the UK between 12 August 1955, and 23 July 1957.

Cast

as Sir Roderick Strood *

as Daphne, Lady Strood *

Eunice Gayson Eunice Elizabeth Sargaison (17 March 1928 – 8 June 2018), known professionally as Eunice Gayson, was an English actress best known for playing Sylvia Trench, James Bond's love interest in the first two Bond films ('' Dr. No'' and '' From Russ ...

as Elizabeth *

Freda Jackson Freda Maud Jackson (29 December 1907 – 20 October 1990) was an English stage actress who also worked in film and television. Early life and career Jackson was born in Nottingham in 1907. She made her stage debut on 1 January 1934 at the No ...

as Mrs. Tucker *

Hugh Latimer Hugh Latimer ( – 16 October 1555) was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, and later Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI. In 1555 under the Catholic Queen Mary I he was burned at the ...

as Mark Perryman * Ronald Simpson as Dr. Cartwright *

Victor Maddern Victor Jack Maddern (16 March 1928 – 22 June 1993) was an English actor. He was described by ''The Telegraph'' as having "one of the most distinctive and eloquent faces in post-war British cinema." Life and career Born in Seven Kings, ...

as Bonaker *

Anthony Newley Anthony Newley (24 September 1931 – 14 April 1999) was an English actor, director, comedian, singer, and composer. A "latter-day British Al Jolson", he achieved widespread success in song, and on stage and screen. "One of Broadway's greatest ...

as Cyril Gaskin *

Margaretta Scott Margaretta Mary Winifred ScottBrian McFarlane, "Scott, Margaretta Mary Winifred (1912–2005)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Jan 201available online Retrieved 30 August 2020. (13 February 1912 – 15 Apr ...

as Mrs. Cranshaw *

Leslie Weston Leslie Weston (24 July 1896 – 13 October 1975) was a British actor who was also a radio and variety comedian. Selected filmography * ''Glamour Girl'' (1938) * '' They Drive by Night'' (1938) * '' Two for Danger'' (1940) * '' We Dive at D ...

as James Bayfield *

Martin Boddey Albert Martin Boddey (16 April 1907 – 24 October 1975) was a British film and television actor. Boddey started acting when he was nearly 40, often portraying irritable authority figures such as police officers or magistrates. He was a fo ...

as Detective Sergeant Horne *

Joan Hickson Joan Bogle Hickson (5 August 1906 – 17 October 1998) was an English actress of theatre, film and television. She was known for her role as Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the television series '' Miss Marple''. She also narrated a number of ...

as Mrs. Prynne * David Horne as Antony Harcombe, Q.C. *

Walter Hudd Walter Hudd (20 February 1897 – 20 January 1963) was a British actor and director. Stage career Hudd made his stage debut in ''The Manxman'' in 1919, and later toured as part of the Fred Terry Company; first attracting serious attention pla ...

as the Judge (Mr. Justice Sarum) *

Raymond Huntley Horace Raymond Huntley (23 April 1904 – 15 June 1990) was an English actor who appeared in dozens of British films from the 1930s to the 1970s. He also appeared in the ITV period drama '' Upstairs, Downstairs'' as the pragmatic family soli ...

as Attorney General * Harold Siddons as Cheed's doctor *

Olive Sloane Olive Sloane (16 December 1896 – 28 June 1963) was an English actress whose film career spanned over 40 years from the silent era through to her death. Sloane's career trajectory was unusual in that for most of her professional life she was e ...

as Mrs. Bayfield *

John Schlesinger John Richard Schlesinger ( ; 16 February 1926 – 25 July 2003) was an English film and stage director, and actor. He emerged in the early 1960s as a leading light of the British New Wave, before embarking on a successful career in Hollywood ...

as Doctor Goldfinger *

Gillian Lynne Dame Gillian Barbara Lynne (née Pyrke; 20 February 1926 – 1 July 2018) was an English ballerina, dancer, choreographer, actress, and theatre-television director, noted for her theatre choreography associated with two of the longest-runni ...

as Gladys, Gaskin's girlfriend

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...

'' wrote: "This British court drama follows a now familiar pattern, including the customary cameos of the jury members showing their private lives and problems; the trial itself (with flashbacks) and the final deliberations. Tom Conway seems unsuitably cast and gives a somewhat unconvincing performance; the other players range from adequate to good. Altogether, a conscientious but rather stagey production with an implausible surprise ending." Chibnall and McFarlane in ''The British 'B' Film'' call the film "a not particularly distinguished Old Bailey trial drama with a twist ending that boasted an unusually strong cast."

Leslie Halliwell Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Fi ...

described it as a: "reasonably interesting co-feature." In ''British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959'' David Quinlan rated the film as "mediocre", writing: "Dullish, highly unlikelt thriller."

Kim Newman Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. He is interested in film history and horror fiction – both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's ''Dracula'' at the age of eleven & ...

wrote: "It's a strange piece of storytelling, perhaps made stranger by censorship requirements, and ambitious in its scope for a quota quickie built around a fading (and appropriately glum) Hollywood name, Tom Conway."

References

External links