The Edgar Wallace Mysteries was a British second-feature film series, produced at Merton Park Studios for Anglo-Amalgamated. There were 46 films in the series, made between 1960 and 1965. The films were loose adaptations of Edgar Wallace's books and stories. Very few used his original titles, and there was no attempt to set them in the period in which Wallace wrote, probably to obviate the need for elaborate costumes and sets. A 1962 article in Scene magazine quotes £22,000 as the budget for an episode then in production.
Edgar Wallace Mysteries (Season 5)
The Partner (Episode 1)
Air date: 1963-09-15
Overview: Shady dealings and a duplicitious accountant put studio head Wayne Douglas and his new Oriental actress Lin in peril.
Accidental Death (Episode 2)
Air date: 1963-11-14
Overview: Returning from a party the adopted daughter of Colonel Paxton and her boyfriend are surprised by an intruder. The colonel, however, instantly remembers him as a war comrade.
Five to One (Episode 3)
Air date: 1963-12-18
Overview: Alan Roper is an intelligent young man on the fringes of big time crime. With his partner-in-crime, Lea, and his girlfriend Pat, he's planning his biggest job yet - the robbery of a betting shop owned by a man he hates.
Downfall (Episode 4)
Air date: 1964-01-13
Overview: Harold Crossley is a barrister and respected intellectual, but proves no match to his scheming young wife.
The Verdict (Episode 5)
Air date: 1964-02-08
Overview: Big-time racketeer Joe Armstrong is deported back to Great Britain from America to find himself facing a murder rap for a killing he had committed twenty years before.
We Shall See (Episode 6)
Air date: 1964-04-08
Overview: Alva Collins is the attractive wife of a captain in a civil airline. She is neurotic, vicious and unstable but only her brother knows that she is a hopeless psychopath whose condition can only deteriorate.
Who Was Maddox? (Episode 7)
Air date: 1964-06-06
Overview: A publisher is nearly framed for murder, but he appears to have been goaded by the blackmailer who has also blackmailed the publisher's wife.
Act of Murder (Episode 8)
Air date: 1964-09-09
Overview: A happily married couple plan a vacation in the city to see several stage plays, as the wife is an ex-actress. They arrange to temporarily swap residences with an older couple who want to visit the country. The older couple are actually part of a team of antiques thieves but are interrupted by a friend of the actress-wife. When the cottage couple find there is no city residence, and are told they are probably being robbed, they return home to find everything intact....except their pets and plants were poisoned. Someone seems to be taking advantage of the situation to upset their lives.
Face of a Stranger (Episode 9)
Air date: 1964-09-23
Overview: In prison, two inmates are getting out soon. One, soon getting out, has been sent up for a heist of several thousand pounds, still not recovered. The other, getting out before him, pumps the other for details of his home life, so he he can assume the other's identity and get to the loot first.
Never Mention Murder (Episode 10)
Air date: 1964-11-05
Overview: Top surgeon Philip Teasdale plans to use his medical skills to bump off his wife's lover, but reckons without the greedy private detective he originally hired to prove him a cuckold
The Main Chance (Episode 11)
Air date: 1966-06-01
Overview: A disgraced ex-RAF pilot is enlisted into a smuggling scheme by an electronically sophisticated smuggler, who has a room full of computers and recording devices. The pilot is to take stolen diamonds from across the Channel, but he plans a carefully crafted double cross instead.
