Room 36

Director: Jim Groom
Starring: Paul Herzberg, Portia Booroff, Frank Scantori, Nicola Branson
Production Budget: ~US$300,000 (guesstimate)
Running Time: 90 min
Released: 2005

Set mostly in a seedy London hotel, the Midlothian, Room 36 is a tale of mistaken identity, although in this case it is the identity of the room that causes the confusion. In room 36, an obese salesman (Scantori) awaits a prostitute (Branson), while next door, in room 38 a hit-man (Herzberg) has arranged a meeting with a young, female MP (Booroff). All it takes is one chipped room number and things go horribly wrong.

"It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says, 'What's that package up there in the baggage rack?' And the other answers, 'Oh that's a McGuffin.' The first one asks 'What's a McGuffin?' 'Well' the other man says, 'It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.' The first man says, 'But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,' and the other one answers 'Well, then that's no McGuffin!' So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all." - Alfred Hitchcock.

This film took 11 years to make, due to one disaster after another, including death, fire and Kodak's decision to stop producing the film they were using half way through filming. Yet the director persisted, and it was well worth the effort. The grainy black and white looks fantastic, giving it very much the feel of a film noir or early Hitchcock. It even has a classic Hitchcockian McGuffin, in the microfilm the MP is supposed to be delivering to the man who turns out to be a hit-man. Yet it is also very funny, at times almost to the point of slapstick. The acting is excellent, not even considering the budget, and the 10 year commitment many of them made to it with little or no pay.

Groom's only other movie was 1991s The Revenge of Billy the Kid which centred around the mutant child of a farmer and his goat (get it, Billy the Kid). I haven't seen it but am intrigued, and who wouldn't be?

I urge you to seek out this film, so then in another 11 years we might get to see what Groom comes up with next.

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