Boy are these English moom pitchers bohr-ring! But hey, I guess that before 1961 it was furrin films like this that we Amerigans had nothing else but to see moom pitcher wize on tee-vee so why not settle back and pretend that you're some bored fanabla watching this onna toob back '57 way thinkin' it was either this or Mantovani on the other channel.
Actually s'not that bad even if the kultured air of mid-twentieth-century England permeates this particular pelicula. Set at a seaside carnival resort (and if you really wanna see boring people having fun there's no place like mid-twentieth-century England!), a strange tale of murder and revenge weaves itself after the mysterious deaths of two people at a cottage as well as a stranger rumbling into town. Stranger's out to get the big guy who was more or less responsible for the murder of his estranged wife who just happened to be one of the folk offed, and along the way he meets up with this plain jane type who does exude an air of something, while Mr. Big's henchman played by Peter Lorre tries to run over the troublemaker with a speedboat. Along the way there's this doofy English guy who keeps trying to sail his boat inna ocean which I guess was somebody's idea of comedy relief, and this policeman who smokes a pipe and tails the suspects while playing stare-down with a li'l girl.
Overall it's just typical English entertainment of the day which always lacked a certain ram-bunk-shuh that films from other countries just oozed from their skin. Nothing bad (Lorre saves this from being yet another Sunday afternoon PBS offering) but sheesh, some of us like more outta our cheap moom pitcher recreation time, y'know?
Not just Lorre, but also Sherlock (Ronald Howard) and the Doctor (William Hartnell)! And future Disney director Ken Annakin, too.
ReplyDelete