Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Leofwine_draca MAN BAIT is an early thriller in the career of Hammer Films director Terence Fisher, the man best known for handling all of the studio's horror classics like THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Although virtually unknown today, I found this film to be a strong contender in the world of 1950s British B-cinema, a tight and compelling story of deceit, mistake, blackmail, and murder. The incredibly slimy Peter Reynolds plays a controlling blackmail who involves a young Diana Dors in a plot to fleece a bookshop owner, played sympathetically by George Brent. Inevitably, things don't go quite to plan. MAN BAIT has enough twists and turns to keep any viewer entertained and the cast all do sterling work to bring their characters to life. It's also a surprisingly dark and nihilistic story, plumbing the depths of mankind, with some really vicious moments. The ending had me on the edge of my seat.

Edgar Soberon Torchia A better than average drama written by Frederick Knott, the author of "Dial M for Murder" and "Wait Until Dark", this shows Terence Fisher expertly handling a story of crime, lust and death during his efficient early phase working for Hammer Films, five years before the big success of "The Curse of Frankenstein". Although the main character is John Harman, the mature manager of a London bookstore (played by Irish actor George Brent), two young actors play more appealing characters who are key components of the plot and feature: Diana Dors and Peter Reynolds. A ravishing blonde beauty at 20, Dors had had a dozen of minor screen roles before being introduced in this production as Ruby Bruce, a sexy worker who turns everything around her upside down after she gets mixed up with Jeff Hart, a seductive ex-con played by Reynolds. Under Jeff's influence Ruby blackmails Harman, next a couple of corpses complicate the proceedings, soon Harman is accused of murder and then his secretary (American actress Marguerite Chapman) helps to solve the mystery, putting her life in danger. Peter Reynolds is fine, but he does not have much to do as the villain with sinister charm. It is Diana Dors who has more room for creating a real character. She was a very good actress, and although comparisons were often made with Marilyn Monroe, on the acting level she surpassed her American colleague: here she convincingly mixes naive wickedness with vulnerability, making the film not only the account of Harman's story but the drama of a confused working girl as well.

Theo Robertson A lot of people seem to have noticed that there's not much logic gone in to this film . Before we start dishing out awards and starting up a Nobel prize for self congratulations let's be entirely honest in saying it's impossible not to notice the constant and flawed thinking that seems to have gone in to almost every scene . My own personal complaint with MAN BAIT from the outset is that two of the main characters are American living in London in the early 1950s . Let's think about this . American won the war, became a superpower overnight and was winning the peace in spectacular fashion while Britain also won the war and lost the peace along with the empire so badly that the standard of living at this time wasn't much better than in the defeated axis powers . Shocking to think that when this film was produced petrol rationing had just ended and certain foodstuffs were subject to rationing in Britain and yet a couple of Americans are quite happy to live in a starving , rain soaked archipelago where fridges and car ownership would be fairly unknown but power cuts would be common . You can understand the producers wanting to bring in a couple of American actors because it makes American distribution of the film more attractive . You can't help asking would it not have been better if the production team had concentrated on telling a more credible story This is a pity because you can easily see the potential that MAN BAIT had in wanting to be something of a British noir classic . In fact just reading the plot summary on this page finding himself attracted to a pretty blonde clerk that leads to a plot of blackmail and murder so the bare bones of a good involving thriller are there . However it's the way the story unfolds that is a serious problem and undermines most of the potential . People don't do anything in a logical manner and they don't react to situations that you would recognise as being realistic which means the only thing you'll remember from this film is that it starred Diana Dors when she was a starlet of British cinema and that many of the people behind the scenes went on to make Hammer studios a successful horror film franchise

FilmFlaneur In 1950, before Hammer made a name for itself with a memorable horror output, it set up a deal with American producer Robert L. Lippert to make a dozen or so low budget crime dramas, all of which were to be shot in the UK. In all the arrangement lasted for some five years, and utilised the fading star qualities of such past-their-sell-date American talent such as Dane Clark, Paul Henreid, Lizabeth Scott and George Brent, as well as leading British character actors.None of the films are of the front rank, being issued originally on the bottom half of double bills. Hammer may not have established itself as a memorable producer of noir on the basis of this transatlantic deal, but the results have been unfairly neglected (being the basis of only a passing reference in the official history of the studio for instance).Criticism of the films, apart from focusing on their small budgets and hand-me-down leads, has generally dwelt on the success or otherwise of transplanting an American hardboiled genre into a different soil. Certainly the first of those made under the new arrangement The Last Page (aka: Man Bait, 1952) is example. Far too genteel to be successful as more than a mildly suspenseful thriller, its impact is further affected by the unassuming performance of lead George Brent - an actor whom Betty Davies apparently liked as a partner on screen as it was so easy to steal the picture from him! Brent plays the manager of a bookshop, hardly the first choice for a thriller/ noir setting (although one makes a memorable appearance in The Big Sleep) who is blackmailed by the bad blonde of the title - no less than Diana Dors, an early screen role. It was an early credit too for one of Hammer's best directors Terence Fisher, though again this critic, at least, thinks he remains a minor talent. Like practically all the Hammer films in this series, the title was changed for the American market and 'Man Bait' certainly sounds more the job for the pulp world that the films inhabit. It also places Dors firmly at the centre of this film with a fine sense of atmosphere - having worked in the book trade for some years I found the dated interiors and procedures especially fascinating - while some other, equally effective location shooting amidst a now-lost London adds to the charm.