Review for Mr. Denning Drives North

‘Mr. Denning Drives North’ is a very welcome release from the fine folk at Network – aided and abetted by StudioCanal who have set new standards in their transferring technology. It looks great. So if you already know and like the film, read no further – go to the Network-On-Air site and place your order!


The intriguingly titled ‘Mr.Denning Drives North’ is a 1952 British mystery film directed by Anthony Kimmins and starring John Mills, Phyllis Calvert and Eileen Moore.


 The screenplay was penned by Alec Coppel, an Australian who had settled in the UK after the war, and it’s based on his own novel of the same title from the previous year. Copel had already penned the screenplay to ‘Obsession’ (1949) and was later to write the screenplay for Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), recently voted the greatest movie of all time by the BFI.


Mr. Denning (John Mills), the lead designer and major shareholder in an aircraft manufacturing company, is distraught to discover his daughter is in love with a much older man, known to be a blackmailer (Herbert Lom who later appears as the murdered man’s brother).

In a fit of rage, Denning swings for the man in his apartment with a sweeping uppercut that sends the man flying backwards, where he then hits his head on the fireplace.


Denning, discovering he has accidently killed the man, panics and sets about disposing of the body in remote rural area. He places a distinctive ring on the finger of the man which he think will be used to identify the body, meaning that anyone who might know him would be likely put off by the description. In the meantime, a note which the blackmailer had written for cash, telling the daughter that the affair was over, was enough to convince the girl to give up.


So all is well until Denning’s conscience starts to get the better of him. He has constant nightmares and has started drinking regularly and acting irrationally at work. Things come to a dramatic head when he nearly commits suicide whilst flying a test plane. Following that, he confesses all to his wife who immediately goes into pragmatic mode to get the whole ghastly mess behind them.


It’s a great little thriller, though certainly not to Hitchcock standards, with lots of twists and turns adding to its tensions. Where it perhaps falters a little, in my opinion, is in the telling – the characterisation doesn’t quite ring true.


The psychological elements are played a bit ham-fistedly and the wife and daughter’s reactions to the ‘murder’ (tantamount to ‘oh well, it’s just one of those things’) just don’t ring true. However, the constant and building tensions where Mills character thinks he’s in the clear and then he isn’t, and then he is do create a very watchable thriller.


The film isn’t entirely without humour. Wilfred-Hyde White steals the show with his turn as a mortician – quite excellent and provides both laughs and tension; not easy to do.


Mills is a charismatic lead, though somewhat let down by the script which sees him descending into alcoholism in a slightly clumsy way, and the rest of the cast do a workmanlike job throughout.

Sam Wannamaker does a good job as the over-zealous Attorney, in love with the daughter of the murderer he is unwittingly chasing, sharing every detail of his investigation along the way.

Special features are slight – just an image gallery and a two page PDF publicity piece.




‘Mr. Denning Drives North’ is a great little thriller, quintessentially British and lots of fun. It’s no ‘Vertigo’ but it well deserves the excellent transfer it’s been given here. Recommended.