cult film freak: CHRISTINA GREGG MAILING IN A STRANGE 'FATE TAKES A HAND'

Christina Gregg & Ronald Howard Year: 1961 Rates: ***

This British hour-long b-movie feels like a reality-TV pilot with Christina Gregg, who starred in several crime thrillers, which FATE TAKES A HAND has only a little to do with, but it's important since, fifteen-years earlier, a batch of letters were stolen in a heist — and having turned up it's now the Post Office's duty to return each to an assortment of eclectic characters...

Christina Gregg plays a reporter tagging along with mail officer Ronald Howard, meeting the would-be-recipients at home or work, each telling a flashback yarn about how bad their lives have gotten for which each letter will mend...

These tales include a love-lorn blind woman, paling to the rudimentary comic relief of a working man standing up to his boss after winning money... while the most earthy has a prisoner recollecting a little girl's kidnapping... Saving the best two for last: One about a husband being framed by a crooked wife... the only to occur before and after the letter-carrying-duo arrive: And a punchy and depressed ex-brawler who "could have been a contender" before throwing a fight... Making FATE not so much a Christina Gregg vehicle but a window seat she breezily looks out of.