Barbados Quest – 1955 | 70 mins | Crime | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Old-style private eye crime drama featuring Tom Conway as a sleuth nicknamed The Duke. Having risen to fame playing urbane man-about-town detectives The Falcon and Bulldog Drummond during the Forties, Conway crossed the Atlantic to appear as the raincoat-wearing Tom ‘Duke’ Martin in two Baker and Berman b-movies; Barbados Quest (1955) and Breakaway (1955). The pacing of Barbados Quest is torturously slow and with the addition of a weak script it makes the film a predictable pedestrian affair.

Wealthy American philatelist J.D. Everleigh hires private detective Tom ‘Duke’ Martin to investigate his purchase in London of a rare Barbados overprint stamp which appears to be a forgery. There are said to be only four of the rare stamps in existence but J.D. discovers a fifth in the collection of Henry Warburg, and to complicate matters the millionaire collector is offered a sixth.

Martin heads to England and seeks the assistance of petty crook Barney Wilson. Martin goes to the seller of the stamp, Robert Coburn, but he denies knowledge of the sale and claims he does not employ a manager named Geoffrey Blake. It emerges that Blake is the nephew of the stamp’s owner, Lady Hawksley. An engraver, Gordoni, is implicated as creating the forgery but he is killed before he can reveal all. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard become irritated by Martin’s meddling and give him one day to fly back to America or threaten to deport him.