Tiger in the Smoke

Tiger in the Smoke is a 1956 British crime film directed by Roy Ward Baker (billed as Roy Baker) and starring Donald Sinden, Muriel Pavlow, Tony Wright, Bernard Miles and Christopher Rhodes. It is based on the 1952 novel The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham, although the film omits the principal character of Albert Campion. The film is set in a noirish smog-shrouded London and briefly in Brittany, France, and combines the genres of mystery, thriller, crime and drama. The cinematography was by Geoffrey Unsworth. Except for the omission of Campion, the film follows the plot of the book very closely. It was shot at Pinewood Studios with sets designed by the art director Jack Maxsted. Plot Having been sent a picture of her husband, a war hero reported missing in action in France, Meg Elgin, now engaged to her fiancé Geoffrey Leavitt, is led to believe he is still alive and arranges a meeting at a London railway station. When she arrives there with the police accompanying her, she catches sight of a man in the distance wearing an old coat of her husband's. When he is pursued and captured, he turns out to be Duds Morrison, a former soldier and out-of-work actor recently let out of prison. He refuses to tell them anything, and having nothing they can charge him with, the police release him. His interest aroused by the pictures sent to Meg, Leavitt follows Morrison and tries to question him about his sudden appearance masquerading as Meg’s dead husband. Morrison again refuses to talk, and tries to flee from Leavitt into an alley, but he is set upon by a group of street musicians who beat him to death, and also take Leavitt as a prisoner.