Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Catherina If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

jimbo-53-186511 A upper class family are celebrating round a dinner table one evening when they receive a visit from Inspector Poole (Alastair Sim). The inspector informs the family that a young woman that they all know has died. Due to the fact that everyone in the family knows the victim, the Inspector begins to question each member of the family to try to uncover the truth surrounding her death.An Inspector Calls is a film adaptation of a JB Priestley play and the film does have a very stagy feel about it. However, once Inspector Poole arrives the film never lets up and I was fully wrapped up in the story. Like any mystery film the less you know about it beforehand the better the experience is likely to be for you. The nature of the narrative had me hooked as I was never really sure which direction the film would take me in and how it was going to end - in other words it kept me guessing. The ending is both surprising and thought-provoking.Aside from a good narrative, the film also benefits from excellent performances from the cast with Sim arguably being the strongest player. The way he interrogates the family and gets information out of them is also top-notch and very clever.This is a great film and uses a very simple premise and uses it well and to good effect. The running time of 80 minutes keeps everything tight and ensures that this film never outstays his welcome.

Tim Kidner I'd not seen any other version of this J B Priestly play and its reputation preceded it, for me. I'd seen on TV Alistair Sim in classic war-time films such as Green For Danger, a few Ealing comedies and Christmas favourites, such as Scrooge.His measured and clipped tones always steal the scene, in both the above and 'An Inspector...', the way his gaze is locked onto the eyes of his subject and is thus always enthralling. Not ever having known it to be on TV, at least recently, I bought this lovely, BFI release, in its trademark distinctive packaging, that always stamps an air of superior approval over other editions. The transfer is very good, with good blacks and clean whites and with good, undistorted sound.These days, it may seem all a bit Agatha Christie 'whodunnit' but there's far more to it than that. Not only Sim, quietly and cleverly quizzing the family, but social comment on the 1912 in which it is set and the various members of a factory-owning, exploiting upper classes, that goes far beyond mere history books or documentaries. In between the layers of the story are all types of characters that we all know must have existed but in the interests of social whitewash, were quietened, to the point of extinction.The acting is superb throughout and the script intelligent enough to keep everyone, of all ages and types, intrigued and entertained. Guy Hamilton's direction is without flair, which might have made it gimmicky but is far enough removed from a theatrical setting to ensure no-one can argue that it's just a filmed play.Critics argue that the play originally had far more impact - who can argue with that?I was disappointed that An Inspector is not available in the Alistair Sim Collection, or other boxed set, as this version on its own, can be expensive, though secondhand, like mine, can be affordable.

rotundity I saw this when I was very young (perhaps 11 or 12) and it changed my life in a way that very few films have before or since. If you want to understand how human morality really works then I'd suggest you watch this film, not just once but repeatedly. You will be a better person for it. The direction is perhaps not that showy, but that just serves to underscore the twist from drawing room drama to the philosophical conundrum that the film ends up presenting. (And by the way Alistair Sim is just amazing, and a perfect example of my long held belief that really good comic actors are really good actors, period, with an understanding of emotion and empathy which transcends their original genre)

Robert J. Maxwell J. B. Priestley was a prolific writer of relatively old-fashioned plays, poems, essays, and all the rest of it. One of his major concerns was time. He didn't quite believe in it, not the way the rest of us do.It shows in this play. Alistair Sim enters one of England's stately homes and interrupts an elaborate 1912 dinner, at which everything has gone smoothly. The lord of the manor may be honored with a knighthood and is anxious to avoid any sort of scandal. He's affable but pompous.This family consists of his stand-offish, snobby wife; his beautiful and sensitive daughter; her fiancé, who is a minor industrialist; and the son who seems moody, put out, and has drunk a little too much at dinner.Sim has some questions he wants to ask of the family. His inquiries are polite but not very tactful. A young lady has just died in Brumley. She's taken insect poison or something, a not very pleasant way to check out, and whether or not it was suicide and whether anyone in the family knows anything about the young woman or her motives is the subject of Sims' investigation.Everyone in the family protests. It's a human tragedy, of course, but what have they to do with it? Sims' adroit questioning draws out the fact that everyone in the family has had unwitting contact with the pretty girl, each without knowing of the others' participation in her downfall.The blustering father fired her because she was a troublemaker. She asked for a raise at his factory. (Priestley had socialist leanings.) The daughter insulted her in a fit of pique over an expensive hat. The fiancé had had an affair with her for several months. The stuffy mother had denied her aid when the girl was pregnant and needed charity. The haunted, drunken son turns out to have been the father. So they all contributed to the "human tragedy" in one way or another, important or not.Pacing around on the sidewalk, the fiancé runs into a cop who tells him that there is no inspector with the name that Sims is using. Sims is a fake. The fiancé rushes back to the house and informs the others. The unperturbed Sims is asked to wait in the study, which has no other doors and no open window.The family decides to confront Sims but when they open the study door, he's disappeared. And at this point, the father receives a call that a young woman has just died on the way to hospital, after having taken poison. An inspector is now on the way to question the family.The film doesn't exactly grip the viewer. There is a good deal of drama and guilt in the dining room and flashbacks are used to illustrate the encounters of each family member with the victim. The ending is left up in the air. With Sims in the persona of the inspector, everyone acts guilt ridden, but the moment his identity is questioned some of them revert to type.The semi-supernatural conscience figure (or superego, if you want) wasn't exactly new at the time. Poe's story, "William Wilson," gives us a similar character who may or may not exist. Yet the performances are quite good, some of them, especially Sims with his manufactured smile and his violation of the rules governing politesse. Every time they try to get rid of him, before another embarrassing revelation takes place, he's not quite done. The story itself, of course, is as improbable as all get out -- one working-class babe being driven lower and lower on the social ladder by five members of one family -- independently -- in a city of more than three million? But that's not the point, of course. The point is that no man is an island and that when we cause suffering in someone else, we lose a little bit of ourselves. It's a fundamentally Christian point of view, at least in Edwardian England. I'm not certain how well it fits into our current Zeitgeist, which seems sometimes to owe more to Nietzsche than the New Testament.