As we’ve had a lot of real life courtroom drama this week with the Tommy Robinson case, I thought that it was an appropriate time to put up a fictional courtroom drama from the immediate post war period as part of the Friday Night Movie strand.

‘Take My Life’ is a 1947 British movie starring Marius Goring, Greta Gynt and Hugh Williams and is a plot centred around a race against time to prove that an innocent man is not a murderer. It’s a pretty gripping plot with murder, fear of social ostracism and marital strife as its central themes.

The central character is Nicholas Talbot, played by Hugh Williams who is the manager of his opera star wife Phillipa Shelley (Gynt). One night after Shelley has performed at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, Shelley and Talbot bump into one of Talbot’s former lovers a violinist named Elizabeth Rusman, played by Rosalie Crutchley. The encounter makes Phillipa Shelley jealous and her and Talbot have a row at their flat a row that results in Phillipa throwing something at Talbot that damages his temple. Talbot then goes out of the house in a huff and goes for a walk.

Unfortunately for Talbot whilst he is out, his former lover is murdered at her digs just off the Euston Road, an area near to where Talbot is walking. Someone goes to Rusman’s digs and murders her and in the process of the attack sustains a very similar temple injury to that which Talbot has sustained due to the actions of his highly strung wife.

This distinctive injury along with other circumstantial evidence leads Talbot to be suspected of the murder and he is brought before a jury in Court Number One at the Old Bailey to stand trial for his life. His wife, utterly convinced of her husband’s innocence sets out to prove that he could not be the murderer and to find the man who had indeed murdered Elizabeth Rusman. The film has a terrific climax where Phillipa Shelley has to confront the man who has done his best to cover his tracks and send her innocent husband to the gallows.

This is another forgotten gem of mid 20^th century British cinema and one that kept my interest throughout. I enjoyed this movie and I hope that you enjoy it too.