Pel Pelham (John Ireland) operates a carnival side show act using Henri Sapolio (Eric Pohlmann) and billing him as “The Starving Man”. Pel sets up a tent with a glass tomb inside it. Inside the tomb is Sapolio. Sapolio stays in the glass tomb without eating until he breaks the record for the number of consecutive days he goes without food. The record he tries to beat is his own. This time he plans on starving for 70 days. Pel needs some seed money to set up the act. In the midst of his situation, Pel gets a call from an old friend Tony Lewis (Sidney James).
Lewis is a bookie that Pel used to work for years ago. He tells Pel that he has received a blackmail note from an old flame. Pel finds out that the woman blackmailing Tony lives in the same apartment building as his ‘starving man’, Sapolio. Tony gives Pel the seed money to put on his show, so Pel decides to talk to the woman blackmailing Tony. Tony wants to know if the woman really needs the money or if there is something else going on.
Pel visits the woman and finds out that she is Rena Maroni (Tonia Bern). Rena is also a circus performer. Years ago, Pel got his start in the circus business when he worked for her father. Rena is in a tight spot and was forced to write the blackmail note to Tony. She tells Pel that she has changed her mind and to tell Tony to forget the blackmail. Pel relays the message to Tony and goes about his own business.
The next night the Sapolios are having a party to celebrate the Starving Man opening. Henri goes to the store to gets something for the party. He sees the silhouette of a man going into Rena’s apartment. He thinks nothing more about it and goes about his errand.
A lot of circus people are at the party enjoying themselves when someone kills Rena. The police find Tony’s note on the floor near her body. Tony becomes suspect number one. At least until Tony is killed. Then, when the killer finds out that Henri may have seen him, Henri becomes the next potential victim, but Henri is in a glass cage in the middle of his starvation act.
“The Glass Tomb” AKA “The Glass Cage” was released in 1955 and was directed by Montgomery Tully. It is a British thriller made by the Hammer Film Studios and is also considered a British film noir. The movie is based on the book “The Outsiders” by A.E. Martin.
Even for a Hammer film, it’s not the best thriller out there, but at less than an hour long, it’s quick. The movie ended up being a multilayered plot of blackmail, kidnapping and murder but, somehow, it wasn’t complicated. You know well before the end who the murderer is, but that wasn’t the problem. The ending was just unsatisfying.
Since you already know who-done-it, what you are trying to figure out is how many people will he kill to keep his secrets? Even if you’re not totally sure what the original secret was. The flow of the film is a little sketchy. The plot of the film is a little sparse so several elements that are only lightly connected to each other seem to float off into space instead of having a specific meaning in the film.