This film starts by announcing that it is a Huntington Hartford Production, and Hartford was clearly the Executive Producer. However, this does not appear in the IMDb credits, and my attempt to add the information to the database proved unsuccessful for some reason. I therefore take this opportunity to correct the omission from my close friend Huntington Hartford's list of production credits. (I must admit, he never told me he had anything to do with this film, but then, he did so many things, you could never keep count of them all.) This film features magnificent performances by both Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer. She is at her noblest, and he is at his least mannered. Harrison became extremely irritating as an actor later on, when he became a caricature of himself. But at this stage of his career, when still fresh, he was superb. People today might find Lilli Palmer's character as the dedicated and self-effacing wife offensive, but that was how things were in the 1950s. Also, she was 'standing by her man' before Tammy Wynette was ever heard of and even longer before Hillary Clinton ridiculed her. Loyalty is one of those virtues which seems rather forgotten today, but Lilli Palmer's stalwart character is a lesson in it. When her husband is wrongly accused of murdering a showgirl, she sticks by him firmly even when she realizes he was obsessed with the girl and had been having an affair for some time. The real murderer is superbly played by an extremely creepy Anthony Dawson. This film features the first appearance on screen of Jill Bennett, but she is murdered almost immediately, so you have to be quick or you miss her. The film is very good indeed, and those who hate it are reacting I suspect not against the film but against the period which it expresses.
Review of The Long Dark Hall
