Like many of his contemporaries Wayne Morris found himself reduced to playing the lead in low budget British B films of the fifties.Unfortunately all that he proves is that he is better on his horse than off it.It has to be said that it does appear that he does rather have a weight problem and he rather lumbers around the screen as a mini version of Frankenstein.The plot is very familiar stuff with the villain played by that old smoothie Anton Differing.Although not dressed up in Nazi uniform one feels he is ready to say "We have ways of making you talk".There is also Bruce Seton playing a Detective.Talk about typecasting!Shown on Movies4Men it is worth a look at for the actors rather than the story.
7 Reviews
Not the best UK crime effort
gordonl568 June 2015
Warning: Spoilers
THE CROOKED SKY 1956
This one is a low budget UK crime film starring Anton Differing, Karin Booth and Wayne Morris. In the late 1950's and early 60's, UK producers would bring in American actors to punch up their films. It was hoped that this would help the box office as well as overseas sales. It seldom did. Both Morris and Karin Booth hailed from the US.
This one has the UK Treasury needing help. There is a supply of counterfeit pound notes arriving from the US that the Treasury wants stopped. The boys at the American end send Detective Wayne Morris to help out the Scotland Yard bunch.
Scotland Yard believes that the kinky money pipeline uses an American based airline to transport the bad cash. They have however been unable to discover how it is done. Morris arrives and goes undercover as an efficiency expert doing a study on the Airline.
The head of the investigation for Scotland Yard, Bruce Seaton, offers to help in whatever way possible. Several radio operators for the Airline end up in a non-breathing state, which of course is a less than subtle hint they were up to no good.
The clues lead to the head of a London gambling establishment. Anton Differing, always the nasty cad in a good suit, plays the boss of the phony money operation. He is bringing in the cash and moving it onto the market through the casino. Also in the mix is Sheldon Lawrence as one of the Airline radioman types in Differing's employ. Pretty Karin Booth plays his sister.
It does not take long for Detective Morris to dig up the info needed. (It does not hurt that the villains are leaving bodies carelessly about the place) There are several brisk exchanges of flying fists needed to round up Differing's hired guns. Differing however manages to evade the dragnet, and hotfoots it to the airport. There, he forces Radio operator Lawrence to fly him to France. (Lawrence of course just happens to be a pilot as well) Our boy, Detective Morris, manages to board said aircraft before it leaves the ground. Differing is less than pleased with this move and puts several rounds into the American, dropping him. Now, Lawrence, after setting the automatic flight controls, jumps in for a spot of wrestling with the villain. Lawrence had no problem collecting some extra cash from Differing for smuggling, but murder is going too far. Differing and Lawrence roll about the aircraft before Differing makes an unplanned exit out the cargo door. Needless to say, the long fall puts paid to his escape plans.
Lawrence returns the aircraft to the airport and a wounded Morris is soon on his way to see the medical types.
This one only runs 77 minutes, but seems much longer. The story is weak, the acting, with the exception of Differing, less than good, and the direction is downright shoddy.
Wayne Morris would die of a heart attack in 1959 at age 45. In this one, he never seems to be without a cigarette. Morris was far better in the UK produced films, THE GELIGNITE GANG and THE GREEN BUDDHA. His up and coming film career never recovered from his time spent in the NAVY during WW2. Morris is credited with seven victories over Japanese aircraft in the Pacific.
This one is a low budget UK crime film starring Anton Differing, Karin Booth and Wayne Morris. In the late 1950's and early 60's, UK producers would bring in American actors to punch up their films. It was hoped that this would help the box office as well as overseas sales. It seldom did. Both Morris and Karin Booth hailed from the US.
This one has the UK Treasury needing help. There is a supply of counterfeit pound notes arriving from the US that the Treasury wants stopped. The boys at the American end send Detective Wayne Morris to help out the Scotland Yard bunch.
Scotland Yard believes that the kinky money pipeline uses an American based airline to transport the bad cash. They have however been unable to discover how it is done. Morris arrives and goes undercover as an efficiency expert doing a study on the Airline.
The head of the investigation for Scotland Yard, Bruce Seaton, offers to help in whatever way possible. Several radio operators for the Airline end up in a non-breathing state, which of course is a less than subtle hint they were up to no good.
The clues lead to the head of a London gambling establishment. Anton Differing, always the nasty cad in a good suit, plays the boss of the phony money operation. He is bringing in the cash and moving it onto the market through the casino. Also in the mix is Sheldon Lawrence as one of the Airline radioman types in Differing's employ. Pretty Karin Booth plays his sister.
It does not take long for Detective Morris to dig up the info needed. (It does not hurt that the villains are leaving bodies carelessly about the place) There are several brisk exchanges of flying fists needed to round up Differing's hired guns. Differing however manages to evade the dragnet, and hotfoots it to the airport. There, he forces Radio operator Lawrence to fly him to France. (Lawrence of course just happens to be a pilot as well) Our boy, Detective Morris, manages to board said aircraft before it leaves the ground. Differing is less than pleased with this move and puts several rounds into the American, dropping him. Now, Lawrence, after setting the automatic flight controls, jumps in for a spot of wrestling with the villain. Lawrence had no problem collecting some extra cash from Differing for smuggling, but murder is going too far. Differing and Lawrence roll about the aircraft before Differing makes an unplanned exit out the cargo door. Needless to say, the long fall puts paid to his escape plans.
Lawrence returns the aircraft to the airport and a wounded Morris is soon on his way to see the medical types.
This one only runs 77 minutes, but seems much longer. The story is weak, the acting, with the exception of Differing, less than good, and the direction is downright shoddy.
Wayne Morris would die of a heart attack in 1959 at age 45. In this one, he never seems to be without a cigarette. Morris was far better in the UK produced films, THE GELIGNITE GANG and THE GREEN BUDDHA. His up and coming film career never recovered from his time spent in the NAVY during WW2. Morris is credited with seven victories over Japanese aircraft in the Pacific.
Keep Watching the Skies
richardchatten19 August 2020
Obviously counterfeiting was sorely vexing the authorities during the fifties since it crops up yet again in this nonchalant little quickie kept fresh with location work on and around an actual air base through which the money is being sneaked into the country.
Both leads are Hollywood imports (husky Wayne Morris playing a US treasury official, and husky-voiced Karin Booth, who works in a lab in trousers and a blouse and on whom the camera considerately lingers as she changes to go out).
Richard Shaw (who also moonlights as a cellist) and Bill Brandon make mean-looking heavies but are no match for Morris. People get killed, but it's all very laid back and has an incongruously jaunty score by Wilfrid Burns; while the cast smoke and drink like there's no tomorrow...
Both leads are Hollywood imports (husky Wayne Morris playing a US treasury official, and husky-voiced Karin Booth, who works in a lab in trousers and a blouse and on whom the camera considerately lingers as she changes to go out).
Richard Shaw (who also moonlights as a cellist) and Bill Brandon make mean-looking heavies but are no match for Morris. People get killed, but it's all very laid back and has an incongruously jaunty score by Wilfrid Burns; while the cast smoke and drink like there's no tomorrow...
Wide shoulders = Masculinity?
plan9919 February 2021
Enjoyable enough "B movie" with the American detective having the widest shoulders ever seen on screen due to the exaggerated cut of his jacket. He made Roger Moore in The Saint look narrow shouldered. A huge amount of smoking in this film which must have proved fatal for some of the cast.
A British 'B' with no claims to originality, content wise, but enlivened with one or two offbeat touches.
jamesraeburn200311 December 2017
Warning: Spoilers
A US treasury official called Mike Conlin (Wayne Morris) is sent to Britain to help Scotland Yard close down a counterfeiting ring, which has overwhelmed the country with fake pound notes. An American owned airline called Globelink seems to be at the centre of the case since two of its radio operators have been murdered. One victim was found with a printing plate suggesting that he was planning to double cross the gang and go it alone, while another had a forged note in his cigarette case. On examining it, the police discovered that the paper it was printed on is American so presumably the forged notes are being printed over there too. Conlin is convinced that Globelink airplanes are being used to smuggle the fake money across the Atlantic and, posing as an efficiency expert, goes undercover to investigate the company. He finds an ally in the radio engineer Sandra Hastings (Karin Booth) who was engaged to be married to one of the murdered men. She starts to suspect that her brother, Bill Hastings (Sheldon Lawrence), a radio operator, is involved with the forgers too so she accompanies him to an illegal gambling club owned by Fraser (Anton Diffring). She takes an immediate disliking to him as it appears he has some sort of hold over her brother. When the body of a known compulsive gambler, Smith (Reginald Hearne), is found dead with £25.00 worth of the fake currency on him, it ties him to the club. Conlin and Inspector Macauley (Bruce Seton) put it under surveillance and the former only narrowly escapes an attempt on his life. However, Bill gets cold feet and tells Fraser he wants out of the operation, but he pulls a gun and forces him to fly him out of the country so he can evade justice...
A British b-pic crime thriller that can lay no claims to originality in terms of its content since a countless number of them featured counterfeiting rings as the central thrust of their plots. The way the story develops in Norman Hudis' script is fairly predictable and par for the quota quickie course.
Nevertheless, director Henry Cass ensures the film remains enjoyable and he keeps the story moving along at a fair lick so it keeps us interested and he manages one or two neat offbeat touches. The scene in which the Yard raid Diffring's home, for example, where they interrupt a musical evening attended by society people who keep ssshing them to keep quiet as they make their way towards the study. It appears that when they are not murdering people in cold blood, they have a taste for fine classical music since the musicians are none other than Fraser's henchmen! They casually cease playing and go to knock out the cops and, all the while, the wholly sophisticated audience does not blink an eye and we wonder if the whole thing was a staged managed welcome wagon for intruders.
The film has a nice sense of place thanks to the low key black and white cinematography of Philip Grindrod who makes full use of the London and Home Counties locations. The film is also kept very much afloat by the entire cast who play with conviction. Morris, the imported American leading man, offers an assured performance as Conlin alternating between toughness and easy going charm, but all are upstaged by the master of arch villainy Anton Diffring.
Available on DVD as a double feature with Charles Saunders' crime noir Scarlet Web.
A British b-pic crime thriller that can lay no claims to originality in terms of its content since a countless number of them featured counterfeiting rings as the central thrust of their plots. The way the story develops in Norman Hudis' script is fairly predictable and par for the quota quickie course.
Nevertheless, director Henry Cass ensures the film remains enjoyable and he keeps the story moving along at a fair lick so it keeps us interested and he manages one or two neat offbeat touches. The scene in which the Yard raid Diffring's home, for example, where they interrupt a musical evening attended by society people who keep ssshing them to keep quiet as they make their way towards the study. It appears that when they are not murdering people in cold blood, they have a taste for fine classical music since the musicians are none other than Fraser's henchmen! They casually cease playing and go to knock out the cops and, all the while, the wholly sophisticated audience does not blink an eye and we wonder if the whole thing was a staged managed welcome wagon for intruders.
The film has a nice sense of place thanks to the low key black and white cinematography of Philip Grindrod who makes full use of the London and Home Counties locations. The film is also kept very much afloat by the entire cast who play with conviction. Morris, the imported American leading man, offers an assured performance as Conlin alternating between toughness and easy going charm, but all are upstaged by the master of arch villainy Anton Diffring.
Available on DVD as a double feature with Charles Saunders' crime noir Scarlet Web.
Crooked cash caper
barkiswilling22 April 2022
This modest B pic centred around a counterfeit currency smuggling ring never really ignites into life. Most of the characters are uninteresting and underdeveloped; although the latter cannot be said for the leading man, Wayne Morris, who appears so physically massive that he should be accompanied by a 'Caution- Wide Load' sign.
Bruce Seton is a steadying and reassuring presence as Inspector Mac, and Richard Shaw again shows a menacing screen presence which would later be the trademark of his much better-known namesake, Robert. An entirely quirky twist having one half of the film's double act heavies (Shaw and Bill Brandon, both good) suddenly revealed as a concert-grade Cellist giving a rather splendid and sadly interrupted recital.
Anton Diffring as the chief wrong-un (rather improbably named Fraser), steals the show with another masterclass in smooth urbane Germanic villainy. Shame he keeps calling his girlfriend Colette (the actress's real name) instead of Penny as listed in the cast. No wonder she swiped the dough for those gems in the end.
Bruce Seton is a steadying and reassuring presence as Inspector Mac, and Richard Shaw again shows a menacing screen presence which would later be the trademark of his much better-known namesake, Robert. An entirely quirky twist having one half of the film's double act heavies (Shaw and Bill Brandon, both good) suddenly revealed as a concert-grade Cellist giving a rather splendid and sadly interrupted recital.
Anton Diffring as the chief wrong-un (rather improbably named Fraser), steals the show with another masterclass in smooth urbane Germanic villainy. Shame he keeps calling his girlfriend Colette (the actress's real name) instead of Penny as listed in the cast. No wonder she swiped the dough for those gems in the end.
A film as plodding as its hefty hero
Leofwine_draca3 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
A film as plodding as its hefty hero, THE CROOKED SKY sees an American investigator turning up in the UK to crack a gang of forgers who have been flooding the market with their fake bank notes. Why a British detective couldn't have been brought into play I don't know, except to say that this is another B-picture with an American lead to sell it to audiences overseas. Sadly it's a pretty lame film with a slow pace that never picks up even during a couple of fight scenes, and overall it's a chore to sit through rather than the delight it should be.
Wayne Morris was no stranger to these kinds of pictures having previously appeared in THE GELIGNITE GANG (which was a lot more fun than this one). He seems to be on autopilot here though and can barely bother to read his lines. Anton Diffring as the clichéd villain is much more effective, although the female cast members fail to get much of a look in. The two most interesting characters are the pair of villainous henchmen who look delightfully evil; I was only ever interested in the proceedings when they were on the screen. The script was co-written by Maclean Rogers and Norman Hudis, both of whom could usually be relied upon to make watchable fare, and the direction was by the prolific Henry Cass, also on autopilot.
Wayne Morris was no stranger to these kinds of pictures having previously appeared in THE GELIGNITE GANG (which was a lot more fun than this one). He seems to be on autopilot here though and can barely bother to read his lines. Anton Diffring as the clichéd villain is much more effective, although the female cast members fail to get much of a look in. The two most interesting characters are the pair of villainous henchmen who look delightfully evil; I was only ever interested in the proceedings when they were on the screen. The script was co-written by Maclean Rogers and Norman Hudis, both of whom could usually be relied upon to make watchable fare, and the direction was by the prolific Henry Cass, also on autopilot.
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