ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

MartinHafer When "Town on Trial" begins, you hear the voice of the murderer before he commits the crime! You see him looking at pretty Molly at the country club...and you hear him saying how she has it coming because she's one of THOSE sort of girls! Well, Molly certainly was pretty and liked to show off her figure...and the sicko thought this meant he was entitled to kill her!!Police Superintendent Halloran (John Mills) is assigned to the case. And, unfortunately, it's not a quick and easy case to solve...and some of it is because the rich folks he questions sometimes have a strong sense of entitlement. In fact, the more he investigates, the more these folks put pressure on his superiors to take him off the case! What's to come of this?This is a very good film. Sure, the story is good but the reason I liked it was the very fine acting of Mills. He was a heck of a good actor and made even average material well above average. Well worth your time.

ianlouisiana With lust in their eyes,a group of men watch a nubile(not to say pleasingly plump) blonde playing genteel and wholesomely sexy tennis. Each of these will,in turn,be suspects when the unfortunate young woman gets murdered and Dept Supt Halloran from Scotland Yard - pause for a quick intake of breath - gets called in on the case. Messrs Derek Farr,Alec McCowen and Charles Coburn come immediately under his gaze,a Battle of Britain hero,a teenager(that alone was a crime in 1957 - believe me)and a doctor on the run from some sort of malpractice suit in Canada who has brought his niece along for company and so she can provide a little love interest for Supt Halloran. And here we have "Town on trial"'s greatest(and it has a few) weakness. No matter how much he leers,shouts and menaces,Mr John Mills is totally unconvincing as a tough Scotland Yard detective.He cajoles,he threatens,he lies,even,but he just doesn't cut it. Coppers in 1957 were big,bluff,Brylcreem tonsured men with broken noses and fists like hams who had cut their teeth on mean streets and didn't take any sh*t from anybody - indeed they were seldom offered it in a milieu where both sides of the law knew exactly where they stood. You murdered someone - you risked the rope.Halloran's suspects would all have known that. The thin veneer of respectability is stripped under the basilisk - like eye of Supt Halloran and eventually he gets his man,but not before another murder occurs. Tennis Club morals are vilified and the local teenage hangout,"The Hotspot"(it would probably be called "The 'G' Spot" nowadays) is shown as a den of mildly inappropriate behaviour("It's a rock and roll joint" says Harry Lock,amusing as a sartorially challenged detective). If you're in your seventies and want to remember when you wore a high - necked pullover and a tie to repair your motor - cycle and helmets were for Geoff Duke,you might find "Town on trial" diverting. If not it's a bit of social history that might be amusing.

badajoz-1 The film shows the good and the bad of 50s crime genre movies made in the UK. The direction by John Guillermin (who went on to do some good work) is thoughtful and interesting - different angles and camera movement- but the script has too many holes. You cannot move from whodunnit to deep psychological explanation of the mind of the murderer in about three seconds flat! The storyline of the veneer of a fifties town, where all the so called important people are really hiding secrets, being ripped off by the investigation of a murder of a free and easy, amply bosomed, lay is OK, but it needed a lot more depth and exploration than it is given here. The acting is fine apart from the ridiculous miscasting of John Mills as a tenacious tough detective not afraid to ruffle the dignitas of the leading citizens and capable of seducing the female lead!!!! It should have been Stanley Baker who would have brought more brooding menace and fear to those covering up their indiscretions! And the ending is trite, laughable, and terribly rushed, despite its dramatic location - up a church spire!!!!!! The fifties but not as most remember it!

DFS500 The calm of prosperous Oakley Park is shattered when a local woman is found murdered. A Scotland Yard detective is called in to solve the case. He unmasks the murderer but not before another woman is killed. This picture contains some of the stock characters we see in many thrillers; the woman killed just because she is sexually attractive, the detective who gets results by breaking the rules and a community of outwardly respectable people who all have their dirty little secrets. These elements could have resulted in a predictable formulaic thriller but "Town on Trial" is lifted onto a higher class by the writing, direction and acting.The acting is consistently good from the bit part players up to the stars. The two outstanding performances are given by Alec McCowen as a suspect and John Mills as the detective.I would recommend this film to any viewer.