Just purchased and watched The Snorkel – actually bought  it with Spanish sub titles – but it was an English version. Very good too with Peter Van Eyck as the sinister murderer and Mandy Miller as his stepdaughter who suspects he has murdered her Mother who he had married and before that her Father a few years before.

Also in the cast was Betta St.John playing Candy’s governess – More about her in a later post.

Quite an ingenious plot

The Snorkel (1958)

On holiday from a British boarding school, Candy Brown (Mandy Miller) visits her mother and stepfather at their villa in a Italian coastal town. To her shock, Candy learns that her mother has committed suicide by sealing herself in a room and turning on the gas. Candy immediately suspects foul play, but the police inspector insists that’s impossible: the servants found Candy’s mother in a locked room completely sealed from the inside. The young woman remains unconvinced. She believes the murderer is her stepfather Paul (Peter Van Eyck). As a girl, Candy claimed that she saw Paul drown her father. No one believed Candy then and no one believes her now, not even her companion, Jean (Betta St. John). It appears that Paul has a perfect alibi. And besides, as the inspector pointed out, how could murder be committed inside a locked room?

Peter Van Eyck Above

 Mandy Miller was very believable as Candy. Peter van Eyck was sometimes downright creepy.

The Snorkel may not be the best movie produced by Hammer Films, but it’s a good film

The film had its premier aboard the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth, during a crossing of the Atlantic in May 1958

Paul Decker murders his wife in her Italian villa by drugging her milk and asphyxiating her by gas. He cleverly locks the bedroom from the inside and hides inside a trapdoor in the floor until after the body is discovered by servants. He uses a scuba snorkel connected to tubes on the outside to breathe during the ordeal. Decker’s stepdaughter Candy suspects him immediately, especially since no suicide note was found. She also is convinced that he murdered her father years before, but her accusations fall on deaf ears. The ruthless Decker even poisons the family spaniel when the pet takes too great an interest in the mask and realizes he will ultimately have to get rid of Candy too.

 William Franklyn pictured above also featured in the film. He had a long career in both films and television where he was a familiar face – one thing he is remembered for is the Schweppes advertisements which he was in for a long time.

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There is a very exciting swimming sequence in the film – which looked like ending in disaster for Candy but for the intervention of Betta St John who swims out to the two of them and effectively saves Mandy Miller.

I has read that Peter Van Eyck commented after the film was done that the Producers when casting his role had not asked him if he could swim. Luckily he could because, as he said, there was quite a bit to do in this sequence – mind you they could have used a double I reckon. Mandy Miller also swam just as much as he did – maybe more – as in this shot below :

It is