Edgar Wallace Presents: Flying 55

REVIEW

What's that you say? A careless, carefree young man-about-town who works in his father's factory and jockeys horses for fun? My word - it must be the '30s!

Derrick de Marney (who had previously done turns for Hitchcock in Young and Innocent and William Cameron Menzies in Things To Come) turns in a highly personable performance as idle loafer Bill Urquhart - a man to whom responsibilities mean nothing and work is just something to bunk off from whilst playing with the horses. When his patrician father (quite rightly) has enough of this selfish behaviour, the disowned playboy finds himself tramping the streets and has to rely on the generosity of his dipsomaniac friend - stables owner Charles Barrington. This being an Edgar Wallace story, Barrington (the always-watchable Marius Goring) wanders drunkenly through an immediate vicinity which sports a headstrong-but-vulnerable sister, a matronly aunt, two dastardly baddies and, of course, a case of mistaken identity over a dead tramp.

Totally unrelated to the Edgar Wallace murder mystery sub-genre, Flying 55 nevertheless contains a fair smattering of Wallace's snappy patter and is undeniably a rather fun watch. If nothing else it shows that an Edgar Wallace story doesn't have to be (yet another) straight-laced murder mystery.

Harry Martineau



PRODUCT DETAILS

Adapting a novel by Edgar Wallace, one of the twentieth century’s most successful and prolific thriller writers, Flying 55 sets an exciting tale of double-crossing and blackmail amid the glamour of the horse-racing world. Featured here in a brand-new transfer from original film elements, Flying 55 is showcased in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio.

Bill Urquhart, a young wastrel disinherited by his father, tries to get a job as a jockey – just about the only thing he’s really good at. His name and position work against him, however, so he adopts an alias and prevails upon the charity of a drunken friend, through whom he meets Stella Barrington - who has not only inherited her father’s racing stables but also his debts. Still incognito, he takes on the job of stable lad for Stella but little does she realise that he could be the man to finally put an end to her money worries forever...