The Teckman Mystery

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The Teckman Mystery

1954

Directed by Wendy Toye

A fiction writer begins working on a biography of a pilot who went down during the test flight of a new plane and finds himself soon involved in a series of murders.

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Penny_S
Review by Penny_S ★★★★★ Liked

The Big Noirvember 2/30
Featuring a MacGuffin:
in this film, it’s the plane crash

When choosing films for this challenge, I tried to go with female directors whenever possible. The Teckman Mystery is a British Noir directed by Wendy Toye. This was so enjoyable! I’m thrilled to be watching film noir again. I love the way the title & intros sometimes start with pleasant music & occurrences, giving no hint of the darkness that inevitably ensues. Such is the case in this story, named after the last name of a man who we soon find out is most likely deceased. The coincidences, plot twists, & dry British humor make for an engagingly fun narrative. I had no idea of how things would end! Did I mention how much I enjoyed this?! The film is truly a gem!!

sakana1
Review by sakana1 ★★★ 2

The Teckman Mystery comes from the depths of the Cold War, taking us into a world in which no one can be trusted, and everyone is a possible agent of an unnamed — but unmistakable — foreign power. Men are willing to throw everything away to strengthen their nation's adversary, while women use every weapon at their disposal in service of their secret ideals, sacrificing morality in favor of service to a foreign power.

Our guide through this world is Philip Chance (John Justin), a hail fellow well met public school man, full of unearned confidence and the blithe belief that he is right about everything. His presence presumably gives us a degree of comfort in a dangerous world —…

Doc Lyon
Review by Doc Lyon ★★★ 5

3rd Wendy Toye (after "In The Picture" in Three Cases of Murder and The Stranger Left No Card)

If the British are fantastically uptight about sex, we are remarkably lax about intrigue; Bond is a public school playboy taking the world at a jaunty swagger, after all and Francis Durbridge, Teckman's co-writer, was the creator of gentleman detective Paul Temple. The Teckman Mystery follows this model admirably, albeit with much lower stakes. Novelist Chance wanders sidewards into a Cold War conspiracy involving spy planes and Soviet spies, all the while complaining that he's being kept from his house in the South of France. This mostly involves him going to nice lunches across London while occasionally getting whacked on the head by Johnny…

Mark Costello
Review by Mark Costello ★★★ Liked

Hopefully labelled a ‘cold war noir’, this very British and very twee thriller is just far too nice to be much of a noir or much of a thriller…..but that doesn’t stop it from being a warmly affable jaunt, a fond reminder of when something labelled as ‘classic Sunday afternoon fare’ was a simple piece of nostalgic, frivolous nicety.

John Justin is a thriller novelist, flying back to London to meet his agent who wants him to write a biography of a young British test pilot killed in a recent crash of an experimental jet plane. Its not for him, but a run in with the subject’s beautiful sister played by Oscar nominee (for 1971’s ‘The Go-Between’) Margaret Leighton soon…

Christof
Review by Christof ★★★ Liked

This could have been such a wonderful potboiler, or a breezy noir, but the way it is, it feels rather tame throughout.

✨🥀 e m m é
Review by ✨🥀 e m m é ★★★

A bit too slow and predictable to be described as suspense or a thriller. John Justin is a perfectly adequate leading man though, and possesses sufficient charm to carry the picture. I was quite surprised to see this film was directed by a woman when Wendy Toye's name appeared in the credits, since that's such a rarity for the 1950s.

Luke Thorne
Review by Luke Thorne ★★★

Wendy Toye’s British drama in which a writer is commissioned to write the biography of a young airman who died while testing a new plane. Starring Margaret Leighton, John Justin and Roland Culver.

The story concerns a writer (John Justin) who adores the sister (Margaret Leighton) of an allegedly perished test pilot whose case panics Scotland Yard.

John Justin gives a good performance in his part as Philip Chance, the writer finding out information in a book about a pilot, while Margaret Leighton is decent as Helen Teckman, the sister of the pilot who Philip falls in love with.

Elsewhere, there are fine performances to be had from Roland Culver and Duncan Lamont in their respective parts as Harris and…

Annika
Review by Annika ★★★★

love me a noir where the men are to dumb to realise stuff because the woman is hot

🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝
Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝 ★★½

At around about the same time Muriel Box was creating a quirky and good quality body of work as director, Wendy Toye had also broke into the film industry as one of the few female directors of her time.

She was probably better known as a dancer and choreographer but had a distinguished career across a number of pursuits. The Teckman Mystery was a slightly dull introduction to her as a director but it's not without its moments.

Its grand twist is too easily recognised from quite early on (and rather unfortunately spoiled by the poster) and it rather confuses itself near its ending but this could easily have been quite a good paranoid spy mystery. It's just a bit too refined and gentle for its own good despite a strong cast, in which Margaret Leighton is the expected strongest link. Not bad to have on in the background but no more than that.

Lancaster007
Review by Lancaster007 ★★★

Neat British thriller in which novelist Philip Chance is asked to write a biography about young, dead test pilot, by the name of Teckman. When he accepts the commission some rum things happen, break-ins, murder, dodgy individuals offering to-good-to-be-true magazine commissions.
Chance (John Justin) breezes through these episodes with cool British suaveness as things get deadlier. He gets involved with Teckman’s sister, the willowy Margaret Leighton. Whom he met by chance on a plane in the opening scene. 
Directed by Wendy Toye, one of the few female directors working in British cinema in the 50’s, this is a well made mystery with enough twists and turns and characters to keep one invested for all of its 90 minute runtime. And, of course, some smashing location photography of a long gone Britain. 
Not a film or director I’ve heard of before, or the leading man come to that, but one I am glad to have seen.

RChristiansen
Review by RChristiansen ★★★½ Liked

Director Wendy Toye’s gallivanting thriller The Teckman Mystery based on Francis Durbridge’s television series is, typically for the writer, full of twists and turns and beset with mysterious «accidents». Durbridge was of course most famous for his phenomenally successful Paul Temple stories. The Teckman Mystery’s hero is writer Philip Chance played by an energetic John Justin. Margaret Leighton is good as always. It’s a minor but intriguing and enjoyable suspenser.