It's Brighton in the early 60s. A lonely house. A tarty blond gets out of bed and informs her boyfriend that she's pregnant so they'll have to be married. This is a big mistake on her part. The boyfriend evidently doesn't want to build a home because he kills her, chops her up, and stashes her in a trunk in the garage -- most of her, anyway.
We never do see the killer and thereby hangs a tail. The renter of the house, Brian Oulton, is all upset because the occupants are behind in their payments so the police are called in. They are Jack Warner and Ronald Lewis. At first, knowing only that the "Campbells" skipped on the rent, they poke around the house in a leisurely fashion, examining the furniture, the furnace, and so on, all quite disinterestedly, despite being nettled by Oulton, the impatient owner. Once the body is uncovered, the police shift into high gear and the film turns into a nifty policier.
The director, Val Guest, also wrote the screenplay. He doesn't waste a moment. There is occasional overlapping dialog, some brisk but friendly banter, orders are casually snapped out and followed at once. The police have no names, neither the victim nor the presumed killer, and begin visiting neighbors and shops, trying to piece together enough independent data to complete a picture of what happened. I presume that's where the title, "Jigsaw", comes from, and not from the fact that the girl's body was so gruesomely mishandled.
The story itself is too complicated to describe in any detail. Most of these detective stories are. There are many red herrings before the final capture, but the movie ends on a cute note. The killer's alibi rests on an excuse that it was an accident. The poor girl tripped and bashed her head in. In a panic, the killer ran out and bought the instruments that sawed her up. But that was after she was already dead, a Monday night. The alibi is disproved in the last shot when Warner points to a poster advertising a musical performance featuring Beethoven's Piano Concerto, Schubert's Fourth Symphony, and something by Malcolm Arnold. The performance was on Monday night -- Easter -- so all the hardware shops were closed. He must have bought the instruments earlier, so the murder was deliberate. The gag is Malcolm Arnold's name. He scored every British movie ever made between 1900 and 2014, and all his scores were conducted and recorded by Muir Matheson.
It's a little long but thoroughly enjoyable for what it is.
We never do see the killer and thereby hangs a tail. The renter of the house, Brian Oulton, is all upset because the occupants are behind in their payments so the police are called in. They are Jack Warner and Ronald Lewis. At first, knowing only that the "Campbells" skipped on the rent, they poke around the house in a leisurely fashion, examining the furniture, the furnace, and so on, all quite disinterestedly, despite being nettled by Oulton, the impatient owner. Once the body is uncovered, the police shift into high gear and the film turns into a nifty policier.
The director, Val Guest, also wrote the screenplay. He doesn't waste a moment. There is occasional overlapping dialog, some brisk but friendly banter, orders are casually snapped out and followed at once. The police have no names, neither the victim nor the presumed killer, and begin visiting neighbors and shops, trying to piece together enough independent data to complete a picture of what happened. I presume that's where the title, "Jigsaw", comes from, and not from the fact that the girl's body was so gruesomely mishandled.
The story itself is too complicated to describe in any detail. Most of these detective stories are. There are many red herrings before the final capture, but the movie ends on a cute note. The killer's alibi rests on an excuse that it was an accident. The poor girl tripped and bashed her head in. In a panic, the killer ran out and bought the instruments that sawed her up. But that was after she was already dead, a Monday night. The alibi is disproved in the last shot when Warner points to a poster advertising a musical performance featuring Beethoven's Piano Concerto, Schubert's Fourth Symphony, and something by Malcolm Arnold. The performance was on Monday night -- Easter -- so all the hardware shops were closed. He must have bought the instruments earlier, so the murder was deliberate. The gag is Malcolm Arnold's name. He scored every British movie ever made between 1900 and 2014, and all his scores were conducted and recorded by Muir Matheson.
It's a little long but thoroughly enjoyable for what it is.