TERROR STREET. Lippert Films (US) / Hammer Films (UK), 1953. Known as 36 Hours in the UK. Dan Duryea, Elsy Albiin, Ann Gudrun (Gudrun Ure), Eric Pohlmann, John Chandos, Kenneth Griffith. Story & screenplay: Steve Fisher. Director: Montgomery Tully.

   This is one of several (if not many) joint British-American productions in which a single star was imported from the US (Dan Duryea, of course, in this case) to make a movie, often a crime film, on the cheap in England, with the rest of cast consisting of only British and European actors and actresses.

   Two box sets of these Hammer Film Noirs, as they’re called, have been issued so far. On the basis of Terror Street, and the only one in either set that I’ve seen, I’d say that the emphasis is on the cheap. I can’t say in what way, exactly. Maybe it was only poorly done, leaving me with little more to say. (But of course I will.)

   Let me tell you about the story first. Dan Duryea plays an American flier names Rogers who marries a Norwegian girl (played by Elsy Albiin) he meets in England after the war, and they settle down there. When he’s called back to the States for some sort of training program, they have their first fight. Three months having turned into a year without hearing from her, he goes AWOL and heads back to England to see her and to learn why she’s cut off all contact with him

   And guess what. She opens the door to her apartment to find him waiting there, he’s clunked on the head from behind, and he wakes up to find her shot to death beside him, his gun (and the murder weapon) in his hand.

   Not waiting for the police to arrive for them to not believe his story, he heads out on the lam – and straight into the arms of Jenny Miller (Ann Gudrun) who works in a charity kitchen, which may help to explain why she takes him on as a charity case of her own.

   This is not a detective story – we the viewers have already seen the killer do the deed, although of course we do not know why – nor, believe it or not, is it much of a suspense yarn, even though that’s the gimmick that’s meant to keep the story moving: Rogers has only 36 hours before his superiors learn that he’s gone, having smuggled himself into England without their knowledge or permission.

   In those 36 hours, his quest is not only to find the killer and clear himself, but to discover why the long-distance romance with his wife broke up so badly. (Not realizing in the meantime that Jenny is becoming more and more important to him, and vice versa, only I think she realizes it first.) Various sleazy types try to stop them.

   A true noirish situation, right? It was concocted by a writer who started his career writing for the pulp magazines, but this time, nothing that happens seems to ring true, and Duryea appears almost too tired and out of sync to pull off the role he’s to play here, that of both hero and victim. (In his early days of film-making, as you probably need not be told, Duryea was usually a villain.)

   It is hard to say otherwise what goes wrong. The sets are cheap but for the most part, not that cheap, and there is plenty of exterior shooting that provides a glimpse of the non-touristy areas of London in the early 1950s.

   Other than Duryea, the actors are rather stolid folk, with only Ann Gudrun, who was born in Scotland, showing much spark. She was only 5 foot 3, I’m told, but she plays her role with a restrained combination of wistfulness and strength. (In this regard, I wish I had another photo to show you, one without the tears, but so be it.)

   Elsy Albriin is pretty without being beautiful, and if she’d been given a longer role, maybe some of the stiffness she shows early on would have worn away. (She did not have a very long career in either TV or the movies, especially in English-speaking roles.)

   One last generalization, then, and I think it applies here as well. Whenever I watch a movie and all I see are actors standing on a soundstage, that’s when I know when neither the story nor the players has any kind of hold on me. No mesmerizing movie-time spells this time. While in no sense did I find it disastrously bad, Terror Street was largely a disappointment for me.