ags123
It took several viewings for me to follow the storyline; not that it's overly complex, it's merely muddled. For a suspense thriller, there's little suspense and few thrills. It perhaps could have benefitted from a more tense musical score. Yet despite all that, and some clumsily directed sequences, this is a fun, atmospheric film. If you enjoy an old-fashioned approach to whodunits, you're in for a cozy ride. Van Johnson isn't a particularly compelling leading man though he does an adequate job here. Vera Miles imbues her slenderly written character with charm and professionalism. Cecil Parker displays the same wit he showed in "The Ladykillers." The Kino Lorber Blu-Ray DVD has a beautifully restored widescreen picture, but the audio commentary is by far the worst I have ever heard.
robert-temple-1
This is a very good mystery film shot in colour in the mid-fifties in London by Henry Hathaway. There are lots of spectacular shots of the River Thames in the sunset and at night. It is fascinating to see the river as it was then, when so many more smokestacks were standing and none of today's developments had taken place other than the 1953 construction of the Royal Festival Hall. The river was still being used a great deal, but the streets of London are very bare of traffic, and there are still bombed-out buildings standing, in one of which there is a harrowing scene where the star, Van Johnson, nearly falls several storeys into the street from the top floor because the entire front of the building has been missing since the War and, ten years later, the house has still not been demolished. Bomb sites in London were still common sights right the way through the 1960s. In this film, Van Johnson plays a successful American playwright living beside the Thames in London who within recent years has lost his sight. He had been engaged to his former secretary, played by Vera Miles, but upon going blind he had called off the engagement because he decided he had become an object of pity, and a drag upon her. As the action of this film begins, Miles has just travelled from America to try to resurrect her relationship with him, but he keeps rejecting her out of pride and not wishing to become dependent. Johnson has a butler, chauffeur and valet, played by Cecil Parker, who looks after him. Johnson clearly has plenty of money and lives in a very spacious and well-furnished flat. Johnson is learning how to get about with his walking stick and has mastered the journey from his flat to a pub across the street called The Eagle, where the barmaid is played with whimsical cockney charm by the elderly Estelle Winwood. I knew Estelle very well when I was young (when she was, I believe, in her 80s) and she was far from being a cockney! As a genteel person by origin, how she must have enjoyed this, because she had a tremendous spirit of fun and, for someone so thin who looked like a handful of sticks thrown together, remarkable energy! In this film she wears a substantial wig, as her own hair was very thin. We only see Estelle far away from the camera. Henry Hathaway was not a closeup man. I cannot recall a single closeup of any actor in this entire film. Very bad directors sometimes make films in a series of long shots. Hathaway does not do that, because he is far too experienced, and he likes two-shots and mid-shots. We thus do not feel in the film that everything is happening at the wrong end of a telescope. But somehow we never get to see a face up close. This stands out today, in an era of twitching eyebrows and swivelling eyeballs, where the closeup is king. Vera Miles has very little acting to do, as she is merely a cipher in the script. It is her duty to 'stand by her man' despite all the discouragements he can throw at her. Somehow we know that true love will triumph, but I am not permitted to say whether it does or not. The story is a very good one. Sitting one night alone in the Eagle, with his back to the glass panel of the Ladies Bar, against which we can see two silhouettes of heads chatting with each other, Johnson's super-acute hearing picks up an alarming conversation. A dastardly crime of kidnapping a child is being plotted by a Mr. Evans and a woman who appears to be a nanny. Johnson, being blind, cannot see the pair when they leave, but notes that the woman is wearing the expensive perfume 'Plaisir d'Amour', which hardly seems appropriate for a mere nanny. Johnson becomes determined to prevent the crime, the date of which, July 10, he had overheard. He summons the police but they say there is not enough to go on, and will not investigate. Johnson determines to investigate on his own, with the aid of his valet and Vera Miles, who has clearly turned up again at just the right time to make herself useful. The story of how they accomplish the seemingly impossible task of tracking down the criminals is truly impressive, and the film is very engrossing. But there are still many more hurdles ahead of them, and they themselves are now in danger. The motif of the lone blind man being stalked by an assailant whom he cannot see, but from whom he protects himself by turning out all the lights so that they are both left in darkness, is played to the hilt. The film is based on a novel by the British writer Philip MacDonald (1901-1980), which perhaps explains its plot richness. MacDonald is perhaps best known as the screenwriter for Hitchcock's REBECCA (1940), and he wrote many mystery film stories and scripts. The screenplay for this one was written by Nigel Balchin (1908-1970), who also wrote many well-known films and stories for films. Henry Hathaway (1898-1985) was a famous director of 67 films, including the well-known NIAGARA (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and TRUE GRIT (1969) with John Wayne. One of his most fascinating thrillers was THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET (1945, see my review).
writers_reign
Nigel Balchin was one of the finest English novelists of his generation and equally facile at screen writing and it was his name rather than that of veteran director Henry Hathaway and definitely not that of wooden actor Van Johnson that attracted me to this one. Once you get over the ridiculous mistakes which no one who doesn't live in or know London well will register - Johnson's address is given as Portman Square which is indeed close to Baker Street but the Thames is a good mile or more away and not, as depicted, right outside his apartment building - this is a classy little thriller if a tad familiar: Johnson, a playwright has recently lost his sight and overhears a conversation (shades of Sorry, Wrong Number) which he interprets as a plot to kidnap someone. From then on the film divides into two halves; 1) get someone to believe him/fake him seriously and 2)track down the perpetrators. It works on both levels even if Maurice Denham's policeman is a little too dim and a little too eager to let an 'amateur' have his head. Certainly worth seeing.
