| Murder in Eden | |
| Director: | Max Varnel |
| Based On: | a story by John Haggarty |
| Music: | Wilfred Burns |
| Cinematography: | Walter J. Harvey |
| Editing: | Robert Jordan Hill (as Robert Hill) |
| Studio: | Bill and Michael Luckwell Ltd. |
| Distributor: | J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors (UK) |
| Runtime: | 63 minutes |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
Murder in Eden is a 1961 British mystery film directed by Max Varnel and starring Ray McAnally, Catherine Feller and Yvonne Buckingham.[1] An art critic is murdered and a reporter helps Scotland Yard hunt for the killer.[2]
The Woolf Art Gallery is promoting an exhibition of paintings under the title "The Garden of Eden". A man stares intently at a picture of Eve forming one of a pair representing Adam and Eve by a Dutch artist Van Meerwick. After he discovers a famous painting is fake, a noted art critic is killed by a hit-and-run driver. Inspector Peter Sharkey of Scotland Yard joins forces with French magazine reporter Geneviève Beaujean to investigate.
Geneviève spends a lot of time at the gallery. It is revealed she is not a real reporter. The police find a portfolio belonging to the dead man. It states the best forger is Michael Lucas but his work is revealed by the use of zinc white.
Michael Lucas has the real Eve hidden in a secret room in his seaside villa. He has promised to sell it to Bill Robson and shows him the secret room. Geneviève listens to them chat from the secret room. She has a gun. The police arrive and hear her crying.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "What with unapt dialogue, tangled construction, melodramatic playing and unconvincing art work, direction as clumsy as is Max Varnel's here could scarcely make matters worse. The thinly disguised Irish accents of many of the cast and the wholesale use of Georgian Dublin exteriors for a thriller ostensibly set in London add an extra layer of unreality to the bogus art world portrayed."[3]