Reviews

This film , made in 1945, was director Montgomery Tully's first. Over the next 22 years he made 39 more, which judging by their length must have been nearly all been second features (given its stars " The Boys in Brown" was presumably an A.) He was also the main director on the excellent half-hour "Scotland Yard" films, narrated by Edgar Lustgarten, making 14 of the 39.

I won't outline the plot. Others have done that, but ignore FGwynplaineMacintyre 's second paragraph, which is bizarre and misleading. There were several questions that occurred to me. Why did the lover of Masterick's wife climb up a crane when running from the sword-wielding husband? Both common sense and film-going should have told him that fleeing upwards never ends well. Why was Masterick convicted of murder when the body retrieved from the Thames presumably had no sword cuts? Why did Masterick's daughter have no memory of him? (Petula Clark, who played her at the time of the trial, was 12 when this film was made.) Why did Masterick emerge from 15 years in prison with an altogether more cultured voice? Why did lover boy, after a time at sea, return to the East End without changing his name?

Perhaps I'm easy to please, but none of these plot holes stopped me from enjoying this well-acted and well-directed film. I saw it on Talking Pictures TV, which has also shown many of Tully's other films. Some are available on YouTube and Amazon too.

We gave up in the first episode, when the idiot vicar left the pervert's memory stick lying around at home. Why did he do that? So that the writer could have him imprison the maths tutor in the cellar. How that tied in with Stanley Tucci on death row in the US I never found out and don't care.

A couple of years ago the Beeb's annual report revealed that it had 106 executives and 76 creatives who "earn" more than the PM: well, their jobs are so much more onerous and significant, aren't they?

No doubt one of those managers gave the green light to this disaster, whose many loopholes and idiocies have been detailed by others, and no doubt Steven Moffat is one of the 76. His bubble has burst and he's been rumbled. As for the BBC, it's been dumbing down for years and it's time the gravy train hit the buffers.

This is one of several Swedish films from the 40s and 50s which can be seen on Netflix. It's scripted by Herbert Grevenius, who during the period worked on several films with Ingmar Bergman ("It Rains on our Love", "Thirst", "This Can't Happen Here" and the wonderful "Summer Interlude".) The director of this film isn't in the same league as Bergman (who is?) and this, the first film of his I've seen, shows why. It's a simple, not to say simplistic, tale of noble workers versus nasty Nazis.

A train from Germany arrives at the Polish port of Gdynia in 1938. It contains a large consignment of "canned goods" which are loaded on a Swedish ship, to be taken to Franco's Spain. This raise the obvious question "Why not ship them straight from Germany?" to which the obvious answer is "Because then there'd be no film." When the workers find what's really in the crates they jump ship, even though they'll be stuck in Gdynia, which they describe in the most unflattering terms. Their rebellion has little effect, as there are plenty of sailors in the port, anxious for work. Our heroes are a dull lot, and the only interesting characters are the cantankerous, conflicted captain and the steward.

There's a sub-plot involving the leading rebel's attempt to rescue a Jewish prostitute, a refugee from Germany in danger of being send back because she has no papers. This is rather ironic, since Erik "Hampe" Faustman was described by Peter Cowie as the most committed Swedish director of the period, and it's clear that his commitment was to Stalin's Soviet Union. We get talk of proletarian solidarity, and the crew even sing the Internationale. Stalin was a committed anti-Semite, and his purge of Jews in the USSR and its satellites began the year this film was made.

I won't be seeking out any of Faustman's other works.

Erik and Janne break out of prison, and to effect their getaway threaten to shoot a guard's wife and baby, and even kidnap the baby. They meet up with two other crooks, Esse and Bergefrag, and the quartet pull off two heists planned by Esse, the first in a casino Esse frequents, the second and bigger one at a racetrack. The latter obviously reminds one of Kubrick's "The Killing", but this job is carried out very differently, and most ingeniously. Our "heroes" then double-cross the other two, leaving them to be captured by the police.

It's hard to sympathise with such low-life characters, but the direction and script ensure that we are gripped throughout. Janne's only love is for the bottle, but when Erik meets a girl called Mona, a loser like himself, and the two dream of a better life together sympathy creeps in (Mona is played by a lovely young Maud Adelson, who was only 35 when she died of cancer.) Although crooks breaking out of prison and then carrying out robberies sounds a cliché, it's handled freshly here, and this is one of the best such films I've seen. I confess I'd never heard of any of the actors, but they're all very good, .

This film starts intriguingly (see the synopsis), the young leads are attractive and sympathetic, and the supporting cast is strong. Unfortunately the film drags towards the end, and that's the fault of the script, and presumably the source novel. It's a pity as Hasse Ekman created a good noirish atmosphere, and it's hard to understand why his directing career petered out in 1964, when he was only 45.

I'm grateful to Netflix for the chance to see this and seven other Swedish crime films from the period 1947 to 1960, from directors such as Ekman, Arne Mattsson and Lars-Eric Kjellgren. This particular film features several actors who appeared in Ingmar Bergman's films (Alf Kjellin, Eva Henning, Gertrud Fridh, Gunnar Bjornstrand and Ekman himself) and there's no doubt that Bergman towered above his rivals. Still, it's worth noting that when he made his only genre film ("This Can't Happen Here") in 1950 it was so bad that he insisted it remained hidden till after his death.

P. S. If you love animals and are attracted by the title, be warned. The cat in question suffered a horrible fate, and it looked all too real.

We first see Luciana Proietti in 1957 as a girl who is dressed like a little bride. She's supposed to be having her first holy communion, but instead flees the church. She's no Catholic but has inherited her late father's faith in Communism (the previous year's invasion of Hungary clearly didn't bother her.) We follow her and her large , awkward brother as they glory in the Soviet Union's early lead in the space race, and we get plenty of Soviet footage from that time.

Luciana goes from chubby child to sulky, not very attractive adolescent. She resents her mother's re-marriage to a bourgeois engineer, and for someone who's supposed to care about mankind she's depressingly self-centred, and sometimes cruel. She uses a fat young comrade for kissing practice while lusting after the best-looking of Trullo's young Communists. She accuses her mother (Claudia Pandolfi) of only marrying her stepfather (Sergio Rubini) for his money, and calls him a fascist. Worst of all she calls her brother, who's prone to epileptic fits, a "sick retard", causing him to disappear for ages and the family to fear for his life.

Despite my reservations about the leading character, I enjoyed the film. It ends with a nice irony: we see the Americans have overtaken the Soviets in pointless space exploration and planted their flag on the moon. The acting is good throughout, and the director (who also plays a childless Communist who takes a kindly interest in Luciana) is obviously talented. The film isn't autobiographical (Ms Nicchiarelli wasn't born until 1975), and as I didn't hang around for the Q and A I didn't find out if she had a upbringing similar to Luciana's. The fact that her latest film is about Marx's daughter suggests an interest in Communism that was shared by many Italians. They, of course, never had to live under that rotten system: my family in Eastern Europe weren't so lucky.

This film, which seems to drag on forever, is a major disappointment. Not what you'd expect when the fine but under-rated Henri Decoin directs two of France's greatest stars in a Simenon adaptation. Perhaps the blame should be shared between Maurice Auberge's ponderous, excessively talky script, and the unattractiveness of the character Gabin plays. The main interest is in wondering to what extent that character is a Simenon self-portrait.

Francois Donge is a cynical, stolid, well-off, middle-aged businessman who owns a smelly tannery. Having been nagged by a matchmaker that he should be married he marries his brother's future sister-in-law, the much younger Elizabeth, nicknamed Baby. The two are mutually incompatible, the marriage is a disaster and (hell having no fury like a woman scorned) Baby ends up poisoning him. I've never seen a better argument for living together before taking the plunge: it's the only way to really get to know one another, and can save long years of misery. Darrieux was 35 when this was made, but so enchanting that she convinces as a foolishly romantic young woman, even girl. Gabin was thirteen years older but the age gap seems much wider. It's hard to believe in him as the object of Bebe's romanticism, especially as Francois makes it clear he doesn't believe there's such a thing as love. He's focused on his work and sex with his mistresses, though Gabin doesn't look as if he has the energy for all that. Money and power are great aphrodisiacs for gold-diggers, but Baby isn't that sort of girl, so her initial enthusiasm makes no sense.

I've seen four of Decoin's other films ("Les Intrigantes", "Bonnes a Tuer", "Tous peuvent me tuer' and 'La Chatte.") All more interesting and involving than this.

I see I'm the third person to review this film, and the third to give it 10/10, which should tell you something. It's the third of Carlos Hugo Christensen's films I've seen, after "The Trap" and "Never Open that Door": none of them in perfect prints, but all so good that it didn't matter.

This one is a remake of Clouzot's "The Killer Lives at No.21", which used the title of the original novel by S.- A. Steeman and was made six years before. It must be 50 years since I saw that, so I can't compare the two versions, and not having read the book can't say which is more faithful . I suspect it's Clouzot's , since Pierre Fresnay was top-billed and played Inspector Wens, a character Steeman used in other novels. In CHC's version a lodger at No.21 (played by Olga Zubarry) and her reporter boyfriend (Horacio Peterson) play a bigger part in solving the mystery than the police, who keep charging people only to have to release them.

The young leads are good (Peterson was only in his early twenties, but this was his last screen role: he moved to Venezuela and then, apart from co-directing one film, he devoted himself to the theatre.) However, as usual it's the older actors who are more interesting, and make the film special. Guillermo Battaglia as a hammy Russian actor, Nicolas Fregues as a doctor who'd been struck off and Eduardo Coitino as the leading cop stand out particularly.

Fernand (Raymond Pellegrin) has stolen 14 million francs that the gang led by Ricioni (Paul Meurisse) stole in Marseille, and he tries to hide from the gang in a circus where his sister ( a pre-"Zorba" Lila Kedrova) is the fortune teller. The boss hires him as a barker, dancer Gina (Jeanne Moreau) falls for him and the gypsy Quedchi (Moulodji , star of Cayatte's "Nous sommes tous les assasssins") , having seen Fernand's gun, shows an unhealthy interest. You just know it won't end well.

There are many things wrong with the script, though Michel Audiard's dialogue, as sharp as usual, isn't among them. The circus clearly wasn't a great place to hide, as the gang trace Fernand all too easily. Cinquo, the penny-pinching boss of the circus, hires Fernand as a barker without a trial: he's useless and Cinquo has to do the job himself, Quedchi is supposed to have been a trapeze artist who quit after a bad fall, but he has absolutely no difficulty in walking. Finally, it's baffling that the circus includes a ballet dancer, a fortune teller, a magician and a stripper. Obviously French circuses are, or were , very different from those in other countries. Despite all these quibbles I still enjoyed the film considerably.

I bought the DVD because of the cast. Pellegrin and Meurisse often play bad lots, and they don't disappoint. Moreau was still young and lovely, ditto Jacqueline Noelle as Ricioni's prostitute girlfriend. Howard Vernon, the German officer in Melville's "La Silence de la Mer" here plays a trapeze artist. I can't recall seeing Jacques Dufilho in any film before "Le Crabe -Tambour" (1977), and had to check the cast list to see that he played the well-built, thuggish Pepe, Ricioni's sidekick. Also it was hard to believe that Mijanou Bardot, so delightful the following year in "Une balle dans le canon", was the same girl playing Cinquo's rather wan daughter.

I hadn't heard of the director, Pierre Billon. He made this an excellent noir, which owes a certain debt to "The Asphalt Jungle" and "The Killing', though we never see the heist which kick-starts the action. I particularly liked the occasional shots of the little boy and his dog, their innocence providing a nice contrast to the crooks' greed, and hope to see more of Billon's films, particularly "L'homme au chapeau rond" with Raimu. I can't understand why "Jusqu'au dernier", made when he was only 56, was Billon's last film. Was he, perhaps, done in by the Cahiers mob? I'd certainly rather see anything of his than one of Jean-Luc Godawful's efforts.

When Tony (Pierre Vaneck) and Dick (Roger Hanin) were serving in Indochina/Vietnam they undertook to smuggle a great deal of money into France for a gangster known only as The Maltese. Instead they used the money to buy the Tip - Tap nightclub from Tepere (Paul Frankeur.) Now The Maltese is giving them three days to repay him, not easy when the club is losing money. Tepere offers a way out. Every week a rich smuggler puts two suitcases of gold onto a small plane. If Tony and Dick help Tepere and his henchman Alberto steal those cases their share will be enough to pay what they owe the Maltese. Trouble is our heroes aren't very bright: even though Tony is in love with the smuggler's daughter (Mijanou Bardot) they don't wear masks during the robbery. They're amateurs compares to Tepere and The Maltese, and double-crosses are inevitable.

IMDb shows this film as lasting 95 minutes, but when I watched it on YouTube it was only 69 minutes long. However, there were no continuity gaps, in fact there was some padding (Hazel Scott singing in the club, Vaneck and Mijanou running around.) The cast is pretty good. Mijanou plays Brigitte, not doubt an in-joke about her sister. She's not convincing as an ace golfer but she's more attractive than BB: no pouting and trying to be sexy, and it's a pity she soon married and retired. Vaneck is mostly associated with the films of Pierre Kast, a neglected auteur, and while Hanin generally played tough guys, he was less impressive than his contemporary Lino Ventura. There are early appearances by two of France's best actors: Jean Rochefort in his first film plays a waiter in the club, and Michel Lonsdale in his second is a champagne salesman.

The film was a first feature for Michel Deville and Charles Gerard. Deville went on to be one of France's most interesting directors, but Gerard made or co-directed only six features over a ten year period: none made a big mark, and he was mainly active as an actor. The two adapted a story by Albert Simonin, responsible inter alia for "Touchez Pas au Grisbi" and "Melodie en sous-sol." I won't pretend this film is in the same league, but I can recommend it as an enjoyable way to pass 69 minutes (or even 95.)

Bolognini was a great director, shamefully under-valued both now and in his lifetime. I've seen many of his films, but this is the best I've seen so far. Apart from the obvious quality of the direction, photography and music, each part is perfectly cast: I think it was Hitchcock who said casting is half the battle. I've never been a fan of Alain Cuny, but as the manipulative, heartless father he makes a seductive Devil, and puts his arguments in favour of capitalist greed, paternalism and selfishness convincingly. Jacques Perrin had a remarkable ability to make young, naïve idealists very sympathetic rather than dull or wet, and had already done so in two films by Valerio Zurlini, another neglected master, while Rosanna Schiaffino would make any would-be priest fall from grace, unless he was gay. It was a little sad to see Isa Miranda, Italy's great female star during the Fascist period, playing the unflattering role of Perrin's neurotic, insomniac mother, but the state she's in tells us how toxic her husband is.

Bolognini was, like several of Italy's best directors, a Marxist, but the film is never dogmatic or schematic. Just as Cuny subtly engineers his son's seduction and corruption on the yacht, Bolognini subtly exposes the corruption of Italian society. Pace the headmaster's speech in the opening scene, when Perrin and his school year graduate, it isn't a straight choice between Marxism and Catholicism (Bolognini treats the latter with respect.) There's also materialism, consumerism and conformity. The latter is summed up in the brilliant, dialogue-free final scene, with a host of blank-faced young people robotically performing the same dance steps. A perfect film.

We watched all four episodes, and I can't agree with some of the negative comments. The acting was excellent, particularly Maxine Peake as Sam, though she looked rather pinched (peaky), and it was Alison Steadman I think who said she was showing her age. The script was intriguing, keeping us guessing whether it was Maya or Tess who'd died: it was always a safe bet it was murder. I detected none too subtle digs at Sports Direct and Prince Andrew, while Rakhee Thakrar as Maya managed to be both annoyingly neurotic and self-righteous yet at the same time sympathetic.

However, I have many reservations. The idea that there are companies where a woman can only get near to the top if she sleeps with the top men is insulting to both sexes. Tess was just obnoxious, and her attack on Maxine's character at the end, suggesting she'd brought the villains down to take over at the top was just ridiculous: Sam had finally had enough, and had risked her livelihood and indeed her life to expose the crimes. Sam's daughter was also a pain (I'm sure every younger generation thinks it can do better than previous ones, but Gemma was especially smug.) The two cops were the least convincing I've ever seen (an overweight 34 year-old DI and a pig-tailed DS.) The suggestion that Amy, who'd died 10 years ago, had made bad choices was slapped down, but if a 16 year-old over-indulges in drink and drugs and has an affair with an older man I'd say she made bad choices. That was just one example of the tiresome wokeness of the piece (and of the BBC?) The series was written and directed by women and with one exception the women were victims of terrible men. The founder of the company and his two sons, and Maya's abusive husband, were white, heterosexual and therefore vile. The two black characters, and the gay one, were by contrast decent. There's a call to make misogyny a hate crime. I wonder if those making the call think misandry should also be a hate crime, or will this be as one-sided as so-called colour-blind casting and the idea that only gay actors should play gay characters, and only disabled actors should play the disabled?

Despite all the reservations, this was still a fairly enjoyable and gripping tale.

Dick Powell's career had three stages. During the 30s and into the 40s he crooned his way through Warner Brothers musicals such as "42nd. Street," often with Ruby Keeler, and made the odd light comedy. Starting in 1944 he re-invented himself as a tough guy in movies like "Murder, My Sweet," "Pitfall", "Cornered ", "Johnny O'Clock" and "Cry Danger." However, by 1952 the film roles were drying up, so he moved into TV as an actor and producer on such shows as "Four Star Playhouse", "Zane Grey Theatre" and "The Dick Powell Theatre." He also directed 5 films: this is the first and I think the best. I first saw it decades ago, and when it turned up on TV recently on GREAT movies classic (formerly Sony Classic), I had to see it again, and I'm glad I did.

I can understand why some call "Split Second" a noir. Powell had appeared in several, William Bowers had written several and Nicholas Musuraca had shot many classic noirs for RKO, who made this: he and John Alton were the master cameramen who made noirs look so great. Since this film takes place in the desert, mostly in daylight, rather than on the mean city streets at night I'd call it a crime (melo)drama rather than a noir. It has a novel concept, taking place mainly on a nuclear testing site, which refreshes the admittedly far from new story of escaped convicts taking people hostage. Acting honours go to Stephen McNally, always best as a baddie, and Alexis Smith as a woman on her way to Reno to divorce her husband (doctor Richard Egan), accompanied by her lover. Interestingly, the latter is shown not as a lothario but as a decent man who's made the same mistake as her husband, loving a worthless woman who doesn't care if all the others die as long as she survives. McNally plays a mad dog killer, whose only saving grace is his affection for the older man with whom he's escaped from prison (Paul Kelly), shot during the escape. I couldn't help thinking if he really cared he'd have dropped the wounded man outside a hospital rather than dragging him over bumpy desert roads. I also wondered how all these people managed to get so close to the test site when we'd seen others being shooed away from it. Just put aside such quibbles and enjoy this thoroughly well-made little B movie. In our infantilised age (all those damned superhero films) old films like this one are welcome treats.

There's a sad postscript. Powell's second film as director was "The Conqueror" with John Wayne as Genghis Khan (?!) It was not only as bad as it sounds, it was a medical disaster. Because location shooting was done too close to a nuclear test site, Powell, Wayne and many of the cast and crew (including Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead and Pedro Armendariaz) got cancer. I suspect the four survivors in "Split Second" would have had the same fate, as they emerged from hiding so soon.

I agree with guy-bellinger that this is a neglected little gem. Its box-office probably wasn't helped by the uninspiring title, and by having a star who wasn't one of the great names of Italian comedy films. I suspect that Walter Chiari was cast because Vittorio Gassman, who starred in many of Dino Risi's films, wasn't available, but he's perfect as Dino Versini, a ridiculous, boastful, lying man-child (think Donald Trump, but with an important difference: for all his faults, Dino is extremely likeable.) He's a chancer whose get - rich - quick schemes always come unstuck, but despite mockery, from boys playing football and the singing twins, he ploughs on. However, during the course of the day with his son he gradually develops some maturity and sense of responsibility. He's let his son down by reading his very private diary, and let down his girlfriend Elsa by sponging off her. When she says she's had enough and is leaving him he comes to his senses ( the thought of losing Michelle Mercier would bring any man to his senses.) He agrees to take a proper, regular job at last.

The final scene , in which Dino lets off firecrackers, reminded me of Albert Finney as Arthur Seaton throwing stones at the end of "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning." Both characters choose to settle down: some may see their conforming as a defeat, but for me it's more a case of finally growing up.

Another excellent little film I'd never heard of, which popped up in YouTube's film noir section. As so often that's not an accurate description, though it starts in fine noirish style, with a thin-lipped, stony-faced Richard Conte shooting someone . Knowing he'll be the prime suspect he reports the crime to the police, then hot-foots it to his girlfriend Shelley Winters's apartment so he'll have an alibi, only to find she's out. Clearly he's not the smartest crook in San Francisco: surely he would have made absolutely sure she'd be there.

With SF locked down he finds himself at Fisherman's Wharf, hides on a small trawler and once it puts to sea comes out of hiding, claiming to have been drunk and fallen asleep on the boat. The kindly skipper, Hamil Linder (Charles Bickford) is a Swedish immigrant whose only crew is his son (Alex Nicol), for whom work is a dirty four-letter word. Bruno offers to work, and finds he rather enjoys it. He also becomes very fond of Linder, respecting him as the father figure and good role model he (like so many criminals) never had. He's angry that Alex Nicol, as Linder's son, doesn't show his father the respect he deserves. Eventually both Conte and Nicol redeem themselves in different ways. The idea of redemption is very important to Catholics, though I doubt the writer, Ernest K. Gann, was a Catholic.

For some reason Shelley Winters is top-billed. She has some good, snappy dialogue with Stephen McNally as the cop who's trying to get her to betray Bruno, but obviously Conte (who'd starred in the same director's "The Sleeping City" the year before) has the central role. All the acting is good, as is the photography by Russell Metty and the music by Frank Skinner, both top Hollywood craftsmen. There's location shooting in SF and convincing backdrops in the sea scenes: too many directors, including Hitchcock, tolerated ridiculously phoney backdrops. John McIntire has a delightful cameo as Corky, a fisherman desperate to avoid marriage to the woman who owns his boat, and Bickford may well have (as bmacv says) the heaviest Swedish accent since Greta Garbo in "Anna Christie", but as Garbo was Swedish I'd say he nailed the accent. He and McIntire were character actors who never let you down. It all adds up to an engrossing and satisfying film.

Only a few things to add, given that ItalianGerry's review is so thorough.

Mario Monicelli was probably the leading director of Italian film comedies, though fans of Risi and Germi may disagree, so it was a surprise to come across this, a Monicelli film which is totally serious ("The Organiser" with Mastroianni was the only other example I can recall.) Here he strays into the same territory Pietro Germi explored in some of his early films such as "In the Name of the Law" and "The Bandit of Tacca del Lupo": men with rifles riding horses over parched Southern countrysides, obsessed with feuds and honour. There's a bizarre scene where the heads of the two rival clans stage a kind of medieval joust, using guns instead of lances. It reminded me of the showdown between John Wayne and Robert Duvall in "True Grit." Mel Ferrer plays a priest returning to his home town in Sardinia and trying to make peace between the Corraine and Barras clans. He agrees to a plan whereby Agnese Barras (Lea Massari , making her debut) would marry the son of Constantino Corraine (the latter is played by the charismatic Amadeo Nazzari.) The problem with the plan is twofold. The boy is an obnoxious oaf and Agnese is in love with the priest. Apparently her feelings are reciprocated, though you'd never guess it from Ferrer's performance: he looks good but he's not an actor who can show what's going through his character's mind.

This film has a lot going for it, apart from Nazzari. Paolo Ferrara as a cop (the most sympathetic character), the setting, the excellent colour photography, and of course the glorious Brahms Symphony No.4. It's not one of Monicelli's classics, and I doubt if it was mentioned in any of his obituaries, but it's certainly worth catching. It's on YouTube with English subtitles.

Mario Monicelli and Steno made 8 films together before going their separate ways, and this was their last together. According to May Britt's mini bio her early films are almost all forgotten today, and all she had to do in them was look beautiful. Well this is her debut and it certainly doesn't deserve to be forgotten. Franco Brusati, director of "Bread and Chocolate" and "To Forget Venice," worked on the script with Monicelli and Ivo Perilli, and they produced a pretty scathing satire on the selfishness of the haute bourgeoisie.

May Britt as Liliana has the most important role, and does far more than look beautiful (though La Lollo was top-filled she doesn't have too much to do.) MB was only 19 when she made this but appears more mature, maybe 30, which is just as well as Liliana and Osvaldo (Pierre Cressoy) are supposed to have been engaged nine years before. The film starts with a cheese manufacturer called Commendatore Azzali who wants to divorce his wife (Irene Papas, unrecognizable) in order to marry a girl played by Marina Vlady: since the latter was only 15 at the time that's rather creepy. Azzali goes to a dodgy PI, who puts his sidekick Osvaldo on the case. Osvaldo uses his ex-fiancee, who's married a well-heeled Englishman called Rodgers, to gain an entrée into the circles in which the Azzalis move. Mrs Azzali is having an affair, though Cressoy never discovers it, and Lollobrigida is playing the same game. The decadent goings-on rather foreshadow those in 'La Dolce Vita", and there's a fine scene at a party given by a woman called Carla Bellaris, where the rather desperate search for a good time culminates in several idiots jumping fully-clothed into the pool.

In contrast to these people there's a sweet, vulnerable maid called Cesarina (Anna Maria Ferrero) who finds herself wrongly accused of stealing from both the Rodgers and Mrs. Bellaris. She and Liliana, who's very fond of her, are the only decent characters. The rest, of whom Osvaldo is the most despicable, are quite happy to let Cesarina to take the rap, to cover up their wrongdoings and save their reputations. This leads to tragedy and a melodramatic but very satisfying ending. I really glad I caught up with this unknown but impressive film, thanks to MovieDetective.

Terence Fisher didn't direct his first film until 1948, when he was 43, and his reputation rests on the horror films for which Hammer is famous. He directed the first, "The Curse of Frankenstein" in 1957 and made about twenty. Before starting that run he made some main features ("So Long at the Fair" with Bogarde and Simmons was pretty good), but also a string of Bs and some TV episodes. The quality of these is variable: "Stolen Face" was dire, and this one is no better.

Philip Vickers (William Sylvester) returns home to his wife (Paulette Goddard) after 4 years, with amnesia and a nasty scar on his forehead. On a fishing trip in Portugal with three colleagues (employees?) one of them had spiked his drink and tried to kill him. The other three are Job (Patrick Holt), Bill (Paul Carpenter) and Harry Brice, who we never see because he's killed soon after Vickers returns, and Vickers is suspected of his death. Russell Napier, who featured in many of the 30 minute "Scotland Yard" mini-features introduced by Edgar Lustgarten, is the cop trying to solve that case, while Vickers naturally wants to know who tried to kill him in Portugal.

Some of the credits will raise the hopes of Hammer fans: Michael Carreras wrote the script and produced, while Jimmy Sangster was the production manager. The film is based on a novel credited to George Sanders but actually written by Leigh Brackett, who scripted such classics as "The Big Sleep" and "Rio Bravo." It's a great pity Sanders didn't play Vickers, as he'd have made the character much more interesting than Sylvester, who's dour and monotonous. Paulette Goddard, contrary to the comments of one or two reviewers here, was still lovely in her 40s, and it's understandable that all of "The Unholy Four" (the US title) wanted her. However, her material had been declining for some time and this dud seemed to be the last straw. Apart from about 10 TV episodes and Maselli's excellent version of Moravia's "Time of Indifference" she retired. I agree with JohnHowardReid that Napier and Carpenter give the best performances, but overall the film is a rather plodding bore, even silly in places. People don't lock their home, they leave the keys in their cars, and an armed man is all too easily routed by an unarmed man. The denouement, after a second murder, depends on a medical examiner determining the cause of death in what must be record time.

Trivia. There's no mention of Hammer in the credits. The copyright belonged to Exclusive Pictures, their distribution arm, and the first name up is that of Robert L. Lippert. He'd contracted to distribute Hammer's films in the US, which explains why so many of their pre-horror films featured minor and/or fading American stars. Hammer found it cheaper to film in large Thames-side country houses rather than studios, and Oakley Court, whose name you'll see on the gates of the Vickers's home, was one of them, though by 1954 they'd moved on.

Searchanddestroy says Thomas Carr was a lousy director, and made Grade Z westerns for almost his whole career. Neither assertion is correct. It's true that for his first ten years Carr's film and TV work was cheapo stuff, mainly "Superman" and westerns with such "stars" as Sunset Carson and Whip Wilson (never heard of them? Join the club.) However, for the rest of his career he proved that given decent material and actors he would always do a very competent job. He worked prolifically on some of the best TV series of the late 50s and early 60s (I've seen a good many of his episodes), and the films got better too.

His material here was pretty good. John Kempner's script is clever and intriguing (three seems to have been his lucky number: he wrote the novel on which Joe Mankiewicz based "A Letter to Three Wives.") The titular lady is a spoiled rich girl, who's hardly seen once she's shot her older lover at the beginning. During jury selection for her trial sleazebag lawyer Richard Carlson identifies three jurors he thinks he can con into voting not guilty, using Murph, presumably an actor and played by Regis Toomey. To Maria Palmer, as the wife of Karek (Eduard Franz), a refugee from Communist Czechoslovakia, he asserts that The Jamie Dawn Foundation can arrange the escape of the son they left behind. With June Havoc, as a rather fading actress, he's a Texas oilman eager to bankroll a revival of her biggest hit, and he offers Ricardo Montalban, a man struggling to provide for his wife (Laraine Day) and kids, $5,000 to write articles on "How I Acquitted Jamie Dawn." Carlson is more interesting than usual, and Toomey is a very plausible con artist. The flaw in Carlson scheme is that the three he suborns will never do a Henry Fonda and bring the other nine jurors round to voting not guilty, and indeed none of them tries. This would mean a hung jury and a mistrial, so he'd have to start all over again. Still, that doesn't spoil the enjoyment and I felt it was 81 minutes well spent on a film I'd never heard of until it popped up on YouTube.

If you can find it, check out David Niven in a 30 minute Goodyear Theatre episode called "Decision By Terror." He plays a jury foreman desperately trying to get his fellow jurors to declare an obviously guilty gangster not guilty, because hoods are holding his wife and son.

Captain Reichau (Bruno Cremer) has served in France's failed colonial wars in Indochina (Vietnam) and Algeria. Bitter and unemployed, has just served 3 years in prison for his part in the OAS's attempt to overthrow de Gaulle and keep Algeria French. He hangs out at the boxing gym run by one of his former troops, where a sign says "No Women Allowed" (Douard makes an exception for his Vietnamese wife, who works behind the bar, but regards other women as fatal to his proteges getting ahead in boxing.) One day a model called Yo (Marisa Mell) turns up and talks Reichau into considering a heist she's planning with her partner Pierre (Jean-Claude Rolland), a pilot. They're after 500 million old francs, flown from Paris to Bordeaux each month: Pierre has contacts in Tangiers who will pay for them in dollars. Although he hates Pierre, who fingered him for his role in the attempted putsch, Reichau agrees to join the scheme. He devises an elaborate plan, but his motives aren't clear. He's not very interested in money or sex: perhaps he aims to double-cross Pierre, perhaps he needs action to feel alive.

The actual heist lacks tension and takes place in too much gloom. The best scene takes place in the gym, where Reichau tries to persuade his old comrades to revive their dream of going to Brazil. The trouble is that they're not interested, having all settled comfortably into civilian life. Despite the offer of a cushy, well-paid security job Reichau is lost outside the army and living in the past. Maybe the director was rather like that. He was captured by the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu and returned again and again to the subject of Vietnam.

The problem with this film for me was that I didn't care at all what happened. Cremer's never the most sympathetic of actors, Mell here is just a vacuous '60s "dolly bird" (Mini, leather gear etc.) and Rolland looks miserable throughout; he only appeared in 4 features and committed suicide the year after this one was released.

BTW, the director's son Frederic is a director, and I can recommend his "Crime Scenes" with Charles Berling.

Richard Fleischer made his name directing black and white B movies for RKO, especially "The Narrow Margin" and "Armored Car Robbery", both starring Charles McGraw, one of the great screen hard men. Fleischer made 'Violent Saturday" for 20th Century Fox, and it was nothing like as tight and economical as those two classics. It concerns three crooks coming to a small town to rob the bank, always a promising set-up.

I think there are two main reasons for the relative inferiority of this one. One is the use of Cinemascope: colour and widescreen photography, nearly all in sunlight, though well done here, can never be as satisfying in a thriller as the old black and white. The other problem is the script. Hard to believe when it's by Sydney Boehm, who wrote some great noirs, including "The Big Heat" and "Undercover Man", both with Glenn Ford. Others have complained about the amount of soap and mentioned "Peyton Place," published the year after this film was released, and presumably the fault was with the novel on which Boehm based his script. We spend too much time on Victor Mature's desire to be a hero to his young son, and Richard Egan as a poor little rich boy driven to drink by the infidelities of his wife Emily. It doesn't help that while Mature and Egan were handsome hunks and catnip to the ladies, both are rather dull. More interesting is Tommy Noonan as the timid bank manager, married but given to taking his dog for a walk so that he could spy on, and drool over, Virginia Leith, He's got no chance, of course, as she fancies Egan, but Peeping Tom's obsession is understandable. Leith was lovely and talented, and deserves better than to be remembered as Jan in the Pan. There's also Sylvia Sidney as a librarian who steals to pay her debt, Ernest Borgnine as a pacifist Amish farmer and Brad Dexter as Emily's latest lover.

All the strands are brought together when McNally, Marvin and J. Carrol Naish stage their robbery and head to Borgnine's farm with the loot. This is where Fleischer comes into his own: like the similarly underrated John Sturges he was one of the greats when it came to staging action scenes. Marvin, not surprisingly, is the most interesting of the trio. His loose-lipped look suggested oafishness bordering on stupidity, and before he become an unlikely star it was always a pleasure to see him get his. His fate here was up there with the one in "The Big Heat." Despite my reservations, this film is still well worth watching.