not dead, but deadpan

The reviewer remarks on the dryness of this film, but i think that's the point.

The whole Armstrong case was in real life a dry deadpan black comedy- perhaps the film makers didn't emphasise this enough.

Herbert Armstrong was a dry colourless little bureaucrat, who carried out a crime of passion in a dry colourless manner. What is remarkable about the case is the way everyone concerned in this sleepy market town reacted in a rather dry manner to it as well.