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Sapphire
Basil Dearden

Sapphire

  • Mystery
  • Crime
  • Thriller

The sensational story of a girl who didn't belong.

RELEASE

1959-11-02

BUGET

N/A

LENGTH

92 min

Description

Two Scotland Yard detectives investigate the murder of a young woman of mixed race who had been passing for white. As they interview a spate of suspects -- including the girl's white boyfriend and his disapproving parents -- the detectives wade through a stubbornly entrenched sludge of racism and bigotry.

Reviews

CinemaSerf PFP

CinemaSerf

@Geronimo1967

When the eponymous girl is found murdered, it falls to "Supt. Hazard" (Nigel Patrick) and his sidekick "Learoyd" (Michael Craig) to get to the bottom of things. There seems a genuine sense of shock amongst her friends, her landlady and her fiancée "David" (Paul Massie) and his family but when her brother, a doctor, arrives the whole investigation takes on an whole new complexion. What now ensues in a rather unsophisticated police drama, admittedly, but the social and racial aspects of life in London in the late 1950s are writ large - a poignant and frankly rather shameful indictment of attitudes amongst people of various social classes who allow bigotry to remain an accepted part of day-to-day life - even amongst those looking into the crime. Patrick is solid here, as is the victim's would-be father-in-law Bernard Miles ("Ted") and though the denouement has shades of Agatha Christie to it, it's still quite a well paced, compelling and uncomfortable, watch.