What strikes me about those top-of-the-bill films is how vividly the villains are painted. Dirk Bogarde in The Blue Lamp, for instance, remains sexy and dangerous more than 70 years on.
The good young character he is contrasted with, a trainee constable played by Jimmy Hanley, appears utterly insipid, but then I suspect he did when the film was released.
Other villains from this era to seek out are Peter Sellers (playing it utterly straight and with a Liverpool accent) in Never Let Go (1960) and Ronald Ward in Ealing's racing drama The Rainbow Jacket (1954):
"There's a certain gentleman I know - using the term in its widest sense - who wouldn't be at all pleased if you were to win the Leger on Fair Noon."
That was me blogging 14 years ago. This morning a good podcast about Never Let Go dropped - if that's what podcasts do. It's an edition of Goon Pod, which looks at the Goon Show and also at the careers of Sellers, Milligan et al. beyond and after it. This one is certainly worth a listen.
You can see a clip from Never Let Go above - and the whole film is on YouTube.
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