A brilliant thriller for you all this week with twists and turns aplenty. The Naked Edge, made in 1961 and starring Gary Cooper and Deborah Kerr, is the story of a man who gives evidence in the case of a robbery that ended up in murder only to find the he himself is being accused by a blackmailer of the same murder.

The plot, which I will not give too much away about, concerns an American, George Radcliffe and played by Cooper who is living in London, who comes into a large sum of money at just the same time as a robbery occurs at his workplace. This attack was the one that not only resulted in the death of a fellow employee, but also supposedly netted £60,000 for the robber.

Seven years after the robbery and the trial that ended up with the supposed robber being given a life sentence, a letter, delayed by interesting circumstances in the postal system, arrives at Radcliffe’s home and is read by his wife Martha. The much delayed letter, which was intended to be received shortly after the trial of the robber was from a supposed blackmailer who accused Mr Radcliffe of carrying out the murder and demanded hush money.

Because of the passage of time that had occurred since the trial and Radcliffe’s rapid rise to business success there was a lack of availability of documents that Radcliffe could use in order to prove his innocence. As time goes on Martha Radcliffe comes to wonder whether her husband could or could not be the real murderer of his own work colleague. I will say no more about the plot in order to not spoil the very great surprise that the plot contains.

This is a brilliant and well crafted thriller with intriguing and effective camera work. I really enjoyed this new discovery from the world of early 1960’s British movies and I hope that you will enjoy it too.