EDGAR WALLACE MYSTERIES - Volume 9

SET #9

Edgar Wallace was a British novelist, playwright, and journalist who produced popular detective and suspense stories and was in his time "the king" of the modern thriller. He is the author who created one of the screen's greatest monsters - KING KONG. Wallace's literary output - 175 books, 24 plays, and countless articles and review sketches - have undermined his reputation as a fresh and original writer. In England in the 1920s Wallace was said to be the second biggest seller after the Bible.

ATTEMPT TO KILL

Attempts to Kill is a sprightly 57-minute entry in Merton Park Productions' "Edgar Wallace Mysteries" series. Derek Farr stars as Scotland Yard inspector Minter, on the trail of a ruthless gang of confidence tricksters. The scam artists' latest target is a London businessman, whom they plan to kill if he doesn't fork over his dough. Halfway through, the film becomes a bit talk-heavy, but the action-packed finale makes up for this. Attempts to Kill is based on Edgar Wallace's The Lone House Mystery

ACT OF MURDER

John Carson (not Johnny Carson, as listed in some source books) stars in the grim British programmer Act of Murder. Carson plays an actor who still carries a torch for his ex-mistress Justine Lord, even though she is now happily married to Anthony Bate. With cold-blooded resolve, the actor conducts a campaign to drive Bate to a nervous breakdown. Instead, the distracted husband is driven to commit murder.

CANDIDATE FOR MURDER

This suspenseful crime drama finds a jealous husband hiring a killer to murder his supposedly unfaithful wife. Donald Edwards (Michael Gough) imports the German hit man Kersten (Hans Borsody) to murder his wife Helen (Erika Remberg). He suspects her of having an affair with Robert (John Justin). The usually cold-blooded hit man first agrees to the assignment, but he soon becomes convinced that Helen is innocent of any wrongdoing. When he refuses to kill Helen, he is confronted by the irate husband, something which leads to an inevitable showdown.

BACKFIRE

A business partner, desperate to milk some kind of profit from his failing cosmetics business, turns to arson with deadly results when he inadvertently immolates his partner while trying to destroy the factory. Still he succeeds in getting the insurance money. He then gets greedy and decides to do the same thing to his late partner's lovely daughter. Fortunately, an intrepid insurance investigator is on the case.