cult film freak: JANE ASHER & IAN HENDRY RELATE WITH 'GIRL IN THE HEADLINES'

Jane Asher from GIRL IN THE HEADLINES Year: 1963 Rating: **1/2

Also known as THE MODEL MURDER CASE, this British Neo Noir has a perfectly cast Ian Hendry with Ronald Fraser as cop partners (Inspector and Sergeant) with such terrific chemistry it's a shame there weren't more films, or perhaps a television series where GIRL IN THE HEADLINES would be a merely passable episode... albeit filled with fantastic looking sets showcasing pallid wealth in a mystery thriller that needed not only more thrills but far more action...

A shame the titular model, shown all through the opening credits and even the first several minutes (seated dead in someone else's living room), isn't credited anywhere: Her character is quite something, making this a kind of LAURA where the corpse has a life all her own, albeit not through any flashbacks. The suspects/her friends though are very similar...

Ian Hendry investigates GIRL IN THE HEADLINES

A group of big money lowlifes including a flamboyant TV star (James Villiers); a shady nightclub owner (Kieron Moore); a handsome sailor who could be trafficking drugs (Jeremy Brett); the girl's sullen mother (Margaret Johnston); and an even more sullen married couple while Ian Hendry, who'd wind down his career playing ruthless villains, looks square-jawed classy here, befitting the stalwart lead whether in plush interiors then cold exteriors with his quirky sidekick, or at home with pretty teenage daughter Jane Asher, whose mom (his wife) is more of a cool older sis...

Again, the main characters seem part of something bigger, more expanded... it's too bad they're stuck in one single just-good-enough time-filling thriller because everyone... even the dead girl... deserved better: And in HER case, an actual name!