Mix Me a Person

Mix Me a Person
Directed by	Leslie Norman
Produced by	Sergei Nolbandov
Written by	Ian Dalrymple Jack Trevor Story
Starring	Donald Sinden Anne Baxter Adam Faith Walter Brown Carole Ann Ford Antony Booth
Music by	John Worsley
Cinematography	Ted Moore
Editing by	Ernest Hosler
Distributed by	British Lion Film Corporation
Release date(s)	August 1962
Running time	116 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Mix Me a Person is a 1962 British crime drama film directed by Leslie Norman and starring Anne Baxter, Donald Sinden, Adam Faith, Walter Brown and Carole Ann Ford.^[1] A young London criminal is faced with a hanging for murdering a policeman. With even his defence counsel convinced of his guilt, a female psychiatrist throws herself into proving that the investigating police and legal system have made a mistake.^[2]

Plot

Phillip Bellamy, a leading barrister meets with his wife, Doctor Anne Dyson a psychiatrist and lets drop about case he is about to be involved with defending a young hoodlum who has apparently shot a policemen on a deserted road and been found by police still holding the smoking gun. Bellamy is convinced of his guilt, but is compelled to defend him by the legal code. His wife suggests that she take a look at the patient, as she devotes much of her practice to studying young minds.

She visits the accused, Harry Jukes in prison. He is initially sceptical of her - but he agrees to recount his story. He had stolen a Bentley Continental car to impress one of his female friends, but when she had instead gone off with another boy, he decided to take the car for a spin in the countryside outside London before dumping it. However, he gets involved in an incident which sees one of the cars go flat. A passing policeman on a bike stops and tries to assist him. Decided they need a jack, they flag down a lorry. The lorry stops and the passenger shoots the policemen, before driving off. Jukes had wrestled the gun from them, which was how he was found when a police patrol car arrived.

Convinced by his sincerity, she begins to probe the facts behind the case despite the scepticism and irritation of her husband, who thinks the police have a watertight case against Jukes. Dyson visits the gang of beats that Jukes hung out with in a cafe in Battersea and they agree to help assist her. She also visits Taplow, the man whose car was stolen and he tries to seduce her.

Jukes is convicted at the trial, and also subsequently his appeal. He is taken to the condemned cell to wait for his execution which is little more than days away. Frantically Dyson searches for witnesses or further evidence, but what little she manages to produce does nothing to alter the conviction of the police or her husband that Jukes was the murdered. She catches a break when she manages to track down a couple of adulterous lovers who had been on the road the night of the accident, but fearing blackmail or being arrested they drive off at high speed and are involved in a fatal accident. With her last hope seemingly gone, and with the execution now hours away - she visits Taplow at his offices which have suddenly become filled with Irishman on the night shift. Suspecting something is amiss she escapes and telephones the police.

It transpires that an IRA outfit are planning to rob an arms lorry on its way between bases. The previous attempt had been aborted because of a policeman intervening - which led to his shooting and the murder trial for which the innocent Jukes now stands convicted. Now the IRA are planning a similar operation but are thwarted by the police. Both Taplow and his comrade Terence end up dead. Jukes is released from prison, and returns to join his mates at the Battersea Cafe.

Cast

• Anne Baxter - Doctor Anne Dyson
• Donald Sinden - Phillip Bellamy QC
• Adam Faith - Harry Jukes
• David Kernan - Socko
• Frank Jarvis - Nobby
• Peter Kriss - Dirty Neck
• Carole Ann Ford - Jenny
• Antony Booth - Gravy
• Topsy Jane - Mona
• Jack MacGowran - Terence, the IRA man
• Walter Brown - Max Taplow
• Glyn Houston - Sam
• Dilys Hamlett - Doris
• Meredith Edwards - Johnson
• Alfred Burke - Lumley
• Russell Napier - PC Jarrold
• Ed Devereaux - Superintendent Malley
• Ray Barrett - Inspector Wagstaffe
• Nigel Davenport - Juke's Stepfather

References

1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056243/
2. ^ http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/42958