A bright low budget British comedy thriller, with a dash of The Maltese Falcon as a bunch of types try to track down a valuable brass monkey. The cast is a real grab bag - an awkward Canadian, Carroll Levis, who plays himself (very stiffly); the pretty Carole Landis, shortly before she killed herself in real life; Herbert Lom as a (surprise!) villainous foreigner; Terry Thomas playing himself, as he was then i.e. a stage entertainer (he sings a song); Avril Angers as herself.
It's surprisingly fast paced and light and I enjoyed it. Levis is poor but Landis is spirited and Angers (who I'd never heard of) is a lot of fun. I found it genuinely surprising that Landis was a main baddy - until I remembered they really ripped off Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon.
Structure wise the film does make a big mistake in that the last third the plot comes to the halt and they do Levis' radio show, with people coming on doing various numbers (an accordionist, etc). This ruins momentum, and is annoying. But it's bright and unpretentious.
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