Moonlighting between two projects with ‘Archers’ partner Michael Powell (I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING/’45; A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH/’46), it’s fun to imagine co-scripter Emeric Pressburger responsible for everything good in this serial killer thriller, and for the striking intimations of later Hitchcock projects (especially STRANGERS ON A TRAIN). But with five writers credited, who knows who deserves kudos for its top notch characters & construction. A good cast, too, with Eric Portman as a deranged ‘gentleman’ strangler growing madder by the day; Dulcie Gray as the girl getting too much attention; Derek Farr as the nice new guy in her life; and Roland Culver (fourth-billed, but with the largest role*) as the Scotland Yard Inspector racing against the clock to stop the next murder. Alas, what’s all too clear is that all these good efforts are seriously compromised by Lawrence Huntington’s stiff-jointed megging. True, he’s not helped by a starvation budget (some alarmingly poor process work and a big schlurpy, overused mini-piano concerto from film composer Mischa Spoliansky), but it’s Huntington’s essential dullness that leaves the suspense on the table.
CONTEST: *Culver’s a lot like John Williams who played Hitchcock detectives in DIAL M FOR MURDER/’54 and TO CATCH A THIEF; admittedly a pretty standard role. Less likely is a little scene for Culver and assistant Stanley Holloway early in the investigation more or less lifted from G.B. Shaw’s PYGMALION and prefiguring a famous scene Holloway played as Alfred P. Doolittle in the Lerner & Loewe adaptation MY FAIR LADY. Only Holloway plays a different part here. Name the role he's mirroring and the two similar scenes (here & from MY FAIR LADY) to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of a free streaming film.
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