Cirrus@Austlit

'The wife of Dr. Stephan Hayward, a wealthy consultant psychiatrist, has disappeared. Lomax, an unconventional policeman, is investigating. When anonymous letters accuse the doctor of murdering his own wife, Lomax takes them seriously ...'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/61285). (Sighted: 17/9/2013)

'Drama of the murder of a jeweller and the trial of the suspect.'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/341822). (Sighted: 17/9/2013).

'Adventure thriller with attractive desert settings about a search for buried gold.'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/332106). (Sighted: 17/9/2013)

'Suspense melodrama concerning suave Englishman's beautiful and rich American wife who is very nearly scared to death for her money.'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/42559). (Sighted: 17/9/2013)

'Mystery melodrama about love between a beautiful young married woman and the doctor of her bedridden husband ending with murder.'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/46813). (Sighted: 16/9/2013)

At less than an hour in duration, this telemovie was likely a pilot for a television series that was never made.

It is inspired by long-running radio series The Fat Man (based on characters by Dashiell Hammett), itself filmed in 1951 as The Fat Man. It must be noted, however, that the amateur detective in the radio series and earlier film was Brad Runyan, where the character's name in this film is Lucius Crane.

'A man sets out to prove that his friend is innocent of the murder of a gambler.'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/24760). (Sighted: 17/9/2013)

'Gangster film/melodrama. A psychopathic criminal, obsessed with his mother, is befriended and betrayed by an undercover policeman whom he meets in jail.'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/57918). (Sighted: 17/9/2013)

A contemporary review of the London performance offers the following synopsis:

'The rich shipowner's widow is a good hater, and Miss Diana Wynyard, a fashionable portrait painter's study in black, presents her various hates with measure and tact, enveloping them all in her own personal stillness and beauty. She has hated her husband, and she and a calmly murderous doctor with Mr. Hugh Williams's charming fireside manner have hastened his end. She hates her former lover, Mr. Ronald Squire imperially disguised and unusually solemn under the compulsion to utter more cautious threats than soft insincerities. She hates her step-daughter, a pleasant girl pleasantly played by Miss Ann Leon. It is a wonder that the step-daughter is alive at the end, for what the widow hates the doctor cold-bloodedly destroys. They are driven by hate and fear to go on destroying until, except for the step-daughter and a few minor characters, they have no one left but themselves to destroy.'

'Piccadilly Theatre. "Portrait in Black",' The Times, 31 May 1946, p.6.