Jean Simmons
Trevor Howard
The Crazed Killer Strikes!
Good suspenseful movie that is definitely worth hunting up. The irresistibly beautiful Jean Simmons is a murder suspect and Trevor Howard is a former secret service agent who falls for her and believes in her innocence. It starts quietly and then the suspense gets into high gear.
Secret service agent Major David Somers (Trevor Howard) has an excellent record. He makes a mistake on his last mission and that’s all he’s allowed. He’s fired. He gets a job at a country estate owned by Jess and Nicholas Fenton. Living with them is Jess’s niece Sophie (Jean Simmons). Somers job is to catalog Nicholas’s butterfly collection. (The title refers to a species of butterfly).
Jess tells Somers that Sophie is muddled. When she was six she discovered the body of her mother. Her composer father killed her and then shot himself. One person attracted to Sophie is the local and narcissistic handyman Hick. Jess is attracted to him but Sophie hates him. One day he grabs a comb from her and keeps it. When he returns it the next day he combs his hair first. Sophie says he’s spoiled it and throws it in the dirt.
After three weeks Somers is gone on her. The feeling is mutual. One night he sees her going for a walk. The next day Hick’s body is discovered outside the stables with a knife in his back. It belongs to Sophie. She’s suspect number one. Somers decides to get her out of there and escape to London. His former boss Chubb has had another agent, Shepley (Kenneth Moore) assigned to keep an eye on him.
In London, Somers goes to see Chubb who tells him the police are waiting. Somers has to use his skills as an agent to stay a step ahead of Scotland Yard as well as Shepley and Chubb. The papers feature Sophie’s picture and nickname her “Butterfly Girl.”
Somers uses his old contacts to try and get them both out of the country. One couple helping them are a psychiatrist and his wife who he aided during the war. The doctor tells Sophie she’s muddle because there’s something she’s trying to remember. If she does, she’ll no longer be in that state. The hunt gets into high gear and Somers and Sophie are minutes and sometimes seconds away from being caught.
See this one.
Jean Simmons as Sophie checks out the murder weapon
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