Movie, 1957

Fairly effective, though fairly forgettable story about an experimental jet pilot, suffering psychologically, after a test flight goes badly wrong and he’s forced to bail out. His referral to a hypnotist has dramatic and unintended consequences, as characters and situations are pulled in and conspire to frame a story of murder and mayhem. Thrills and spills are scattered along the way, and show a jazzy side of 1950s England and the late 1950s, whose suggested moral laxity echoes the entangled plot between the hypnotist, the pilot, the pilot’s wife and the various people who live in the same block as the hypnotist. Some creaky episodes here and there, and rather an old lead among a rather old set of lead characters, but enjoyable, all the same.