Three Silent Men (DVD)

Karl Zaroff, an eccentric European inventor, tests a new kind of armor-piercing shell for the British government. Following the demonstration, he is gravely injured in a freak auto accident. Brought to the hospital, Zaroff is operated on by Sir James Quentin, a distinguished surgeon who saves his life. The following night, however, he is found poisoned in his hospital bed. Suspicion falls upon Sir James, who turned virulently anti-war when his son died in WWI. But the doctor may just be an innocent patsy, framed by agents of a foreign power who want Zaroff's deadly invention for themselves...

An exciting thriller made just as World War II was heating up, Three Silent Men keeps audiences guessing until the very end. A distinguished British stage actor and member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sebastian Shaw would be immortalized decades later when he played the unmasked face of Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker, in the third installment of the Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi (1983). Three Silent Men also features a young Andre Morell, later to play Dr. Watson in Hammer's adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) opposite Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes. He also played Professor Bernard Quartermass in the television version of Quatermass and the Pit (1958-9).

• mystery