Return from the Ashes - 1965 film review

I've mentioned the French crime novelist Hubert Monteilhet several times on this blog. Along with Boileau and Narcejac, Sebastien Japrisot, Catherine Arley and Robert Thomas, he took the post-war French story of suspense in fresh directions, and like those other writers, his work proved eminently filmable. Thanks to Sergio of that excellent blog Tipping My Fedora, I've become aware of two films of his book.Return from the Ashes. One was Phoenix, which I reviewed earlier this year and which updates the story in a very radical way. The other dates from 1965 and is rather more faithful to the original.

J. Lee Thompson does, I think, a pretty good job of turning the book into a dark and brooding movie with music by John Dankworth. The excellent cast is extremely well differentiated. Ingrid Thulin, a gifted actor who made a great impression on me many years ago in Bergman's well-regarded if rather depressing Cries and Whispers, plays the part of Michele, a very attractive and very rich widow who is also a successful doctor. Unfortunately, she falls for a good for nothing chess player (Maximilian Schell). They marry, but Michele is immediately arrested by the Nazis, and is thought to have died during the war.

In fact, she has survived the horrors of Dachau, but when she comes back home she finds that Stan, the chess-playing husband, has begun an affair with Fabi, her step-daughter, who hates her. Various complications ensue, but despite the warning words of her long-term admirer Charles (the splendid Herbert Lom) Michele remains devoted to Stan. But then Fabi tries to persuade Stan to murder Michele, so that they can be together forever, with the benefit of Michele's fortune....

I really enjoyed this one, and I'm glad that Sergio directed my attention to it. The film provides a good example of French domestic suspense, which I think has a highly distinctive flavour. The music contributes to the mood, and the acting is so good that the highly melodramatic plot seems not too implausible. It's a real shame that Monteilhet and his work are not better known in this country.

.

Murder without Crime - DVD review

Murder without Crime is a 1950 movie that is a sort of British film noir. It certainly has several intriguing features. These include its origins. It began life as a play called Double Error, written by John Lee Thompson, a Bristol-born actor who turned to writing for the stage, and it ran briefly in London in 1935. Seven years later, a revised version, Murder without Crime, enjoyed much more success in the West End, although when it transferred to Broadway, it sank without trace. This info, by the way, comes from Amnon Kabatchnik's monumental Blood on the Stage, which is a superb source; one of these days, I'll talk in more detail about Katbatchnik's books on mystery plays.

After the war, Thompson adapted his play into a screenplay, and directed a film version. The theatrical origins of the story are fairly apparent, and there are only four actors. Dennis Price is suave and menacing as the odious landlord Matthew. Derek Farr is Stephen, his tenant, who lives in the flat above Matthew's with his wife Jan, Patricia Plunkett. When the couple have a row, Jan walks out, and Matthew takes Stephen to a club - the Teneriffe - where he introduces him to the young blonde hostess Grena (Joan Dowling.) Stephen, who is not the brightest of men to put it mildly, gets involved with Grena,with disastrous consequences.

I enjoyed this film, even though I could have done without the American-style voiceover, which simply didn't fit a very British story. There are, however, several nods to the film noir style of direction, and you can tell that Thompson was experimenting, and learning his craft. He proved to be a very good learner, and in due course, as J. Lee Thompson, he directed several major films, including Cape Fear, Ice Cold in Alex, and The Guns of Navarone.

Dennis Price was always a fascinating actor, and he plays the bad guy with his customary style. But I was most interested to find out about Joan Dowling. There is a very poignant Pathe news feature about her on Youtube, filmed when she signed up with a movie company at the age of 18. The world was at her feet, it seemed. Yet four years after making Murder without Crime, she committed suicide, gassing herself. A profoundly tragic story. I'd like to think she enjoyed appearing in Murder without Crime, and that she was proud of her performance. More generally, this is a film that I can recommend. Not perfect, but decent entertainment. It deserves to be better known..