The Crooked Sky – 1957 | 77 mins | Thriller, Crime | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Crime melodrama about an American investigator who helps Scotland Yard bust a counterfeiting racket and, at the same time, wins a wife. Based on a story co-written by dependable B-director Maclean Rogers, this crime quickie is notable primarily because it was scripted by regular Carry On screenwriter Norman Hudis. The Crooked Sky was amongst several thrillers made in England by burly American actor Wayne Morris in the mid-Fifties. Morris returned to America afterwards, but in 1959 he died from a heart attack at the age of 44. Here, Morris is easily upstaged by German master of menace, Anton Diffring.

The UK has gradually been flooded with £500,000 of counterfeit currency but Scotland Yard has no clues to the perpetrators. But following the mystifying murder of an American airline radio operator just as he is about to enter the police station, Scotland Yard are led to believe the racket may originate in the United States. The US Treasury sends one of their investigators, Mike Conlin (Wayne Morris), to London disguised as an efficency expert.

Once in London, Conlin witnesses the murder of another radio operator in the woods bordering the airport runway. He comes to the obvious conclusion that the Globelink passenger aircraft are being used by the smuggling ring. Conlin’s suspicion falls on another Globelink radio operator, Bill Hastings (Sheldon Lawrence), and his sister, Sandra (Karin Booth), who works in the radio room at the airport. The trail leads to racketeer Fraser (Anton Diffring), who demands Hastings flies him out of the country with the police closing in.