Gerd Oswald directs Robert Wagner, Virginia Leith and Joanne Woodward in this thriller where a ruthless college student resorts to murder in an attempt to marry an heiress.

Such a strange movie for its decade. The opening credits suggest it is going to be a Blake Edwards style Technicolor caper comedy. Jazzy, cartoonish. Then we spend the first half in Robert Wagner’s headspace as he tries to kill his pregnant girlfriend while executing the “perfect murder”. That has obvious frisson if you know the star’s infamous future. It all seems indebted / to be lampooning the moral anguish of A Place In The Sun. No such ethical qualms here though. The second half opens up. But there are at least three set pieces that Hitch would give up a year of his foie gras for. It just is so obtusely uneven and eerie. I’m not entirely sure all that is intentional. Seems to exist to be one of those half remembered out of time movies where that happened and then that happened… AND THEN THAT HAPPENED!

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Perfect Double Bill: Dial M For Murder (1954)