Ahead of listening to the podcast "The House of Hammer", I decided to watch the three "Dick Barton" films from this period. The first one is pretty terrible, but I rather enjoyed the sequel. Unfortunately, the third film is a little too similar to the first for my taste.
Professor Mitchell (Percy Walsh) invents a defensive weapon that will protect Britain's shores from enemy aeroplanes. He, along with his daughter Mary (Joyce Lindon) are kidnapped by Serge Volkoff (Meinhart Maur) a foreign (naturally) agent. With his last moments, Mitchell's guard phones his old friend Dick Barton (Don Stannard) and tries to warn him but is shot before he's able to give more than his location. The incomparable Barton and his associate Snowy (George Ford) are soon hot on Volkoff's trail.
It's poor form not to start with the fact that this third film was the end of the run not because the films were unsuccessful, but because the star, Don Stannard, passed away in a traffic accident. It's quite the shame as he was still a young man and had the franchise run longer, there might have been more of a cultural impact from the character.
The acting is again pretty terrible, never worse than in an appalling fight scenes. The story is much less interesting and involved than in the second film and to be honest, even at just over an hour it struggled to hold on to my attention. The ending is an anti-climax.
Aside from "Strikes Back" there wasn't much to enjoy from the other two films in the series, though it did make me think that a reboot is about due. A nice postwar period action-spy-thriller, but with modern acting, editing and plot standards. Easy money.