The best Mervyn Johns’s thriller movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Mervyn Johns’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Mervyn Johns.
The Day of the Triffids
6.1/10
A shower of meteorites produces a rare night time spectacle that blinds anyone that looks at it. As it was such a beautiful sight, most people were watching, and as a consequence, 99% of the World's population go completely blind. In the original novel, this chaos results in the escape of Triffids: farmed plants harvested for their oils, which are capable of moving themselves around and are carnivorous. In this film version, however, the Triffids are not indigenous plants. Instead they are space aliens whose spores have arrived in this and an earlier meteor shower. Derided by the original novel's author, John Wyndham, for straying so far away from the source material.
Dead of Night
7.5/10
Architect Walter Craig, seeking the possibility of some work at a country farmhouse, soon finds himself once again stuck in his recurring nightmare. Dreading the end of the dream that he knows is coming, he must first listen to all the assembled guests' own bizarre tales.
Went the Day Well?
7.5/10
The quiet village of Bramley End is taken over by German troops posing as Royal Engineers. Their task is to disrupt England's radar network in preparation for a full scale German invasion. Once the villagers discover the true identity of the troops, they do whatever they can to thwart the Nazis plans.
Saloon Bar
6.9/10
A bookmaker with a fancy for detective work attempts to prevent the execution of a potentially innocent man.
My Learned Friend
7/10
An insane murderer is on the loose, and gunning for the men who put him away. Will Hay is on the list, and co-opts Claude Hulbert to try and stop him from meeting a grisly end.
The Next of Kin
6.8/10
Wartime propaganda piece giving the warning "Be like Dad, Keep Mum". A gossipy housewife is overheard talking about what her son is doing by a Nazi spy.
Never Let Go
7.1/10
John Cummings, an unsuccessful cosmetics salesman, has his unpaid-for car stolen by one of the hoods in the employ of Lionel Meadows, the sadistic organizer of a London car conversion racket. The car was not insured, and since the police appear indifferent to his plight, Cummings decides to find it himself -- and gets himself involved in an underworld battle.
The Vicious Circle
6.6/10
When Dr Howard Latimer finds the German Actress that he has just met at London Airport murdered in his flat, it leads him into the world of murder, blackmail and a fake passport scam.
Pink String and Sealing Wax
6.7/10
Melodrama set in Victorian Brighton. Scheming pub landlady uses the timorous son of a domineering pharmacist to assist in the poisoning of her drunkard husband. (The title is from the way pharmacists used to wrap parcels containing poison).
Girl in the News
6.8/10
An elderly lady manages to sneak some pills away from her nurse and dies of an overdose. The nurse is tried for murder and acquitted. Some time later the nurse, under a new name and identity, cares for a patient who also dies of an overdose. When her real identity comes out, suspicions arouses.
Counterblast
6/10
An escaped World War 2 Nazi doctor, impersonates a murdered English doctor so he can work on a vaccination to protect the Germans in their planned germ warfare.
The Counterfeit Plan
6/10
An escaped murderer flees France to England, where he forces an ex-forger, now established as a reputable estate owner, and the forger's daughter who knew nothing of his past, to counterfeit 5-pound notes for mass distribution around the countryside.
