This has been a good weekend of watching important events continue to unfold in the Middle East/North Africa, of reading newspaper reflections and on weekend news programmes such as the Andrew Marr show. I find that Al Jazeera and Press TV are the channel with the most up todate and extensive coverage although at times the number of demonstrators appear on the high side against other estimates. As the Square is cleared the TV cameras will return home and rely on bureau reports for future information. It is hoped that the International media will maintain contact with the demonstrators who provided them information and interviews over the past three weeks. The signs are that the Military Council is genuine in meeting the aspirations has announced the intention to draw up a new constitution with a couple of weeks and to hold a referendum with a view to giving up power as soon as possible after six months. It has abolished the old constitution and ended the fixed Parliament. Their have been street activity in support in Iran banned by the ruling religious dictatorship and in other states, often met by thousands of security police and militia.
It has been a weekend of he British Academy awards and a number of good films: The left hand of God, The Man in Black, The Woman in Green and the Wrong Man. I have separately written on the sport. I enjoyed my food making a stir fry on Saturday after cooking a piece of Turkey Breast. On Sunday I enjoyed lamb chops and then Shepherds Pie having also had three sausages with mash for breakfast. Today I had two bacon roles having obtained some excellent bacon rashers for £1.50 a pack. I needed some prawns in shell and found three packs with reduced price tags to £3 from £4. For lunch I enjoyed a good salad and this evening cooked a second turkey breast slice with a Balti Curry and mushroom rice. I have also enjoyed a couple fo glasses of red wine from my final bottle in cabinet, which has remained to be drunk for the past year.
Last night the British Academy Awards took place at the Royal Opera House. The King’s Speech carried off all the major awards with one exception, that for Direction. I was particularly pleased that Geoffrey Rush took the BAFTA for best supporting actor as did Helena Bonham Carter who also played the Queen of Hearts in Alice. The films not only one the Best British Picture but also the Best Picture over all, I was also pleased that David Seidler was awarded for his screen play. He was similarly afflicted as a young person and was influenced by the struggle of the King. He write to the Queen mother to say that he wanted to wrote the screenplay but she responded saying please not in my lifetime. He kept his word and then the struggle was to find the finances for a film which although cost under £10 million was regarded as not having great appeal even though a fantastic cast was lined up as willing to participate, The film also won best music and fo course it became quickly clear that Colin Firth would win the Vest Actor as he had the Golden Globe. And can look forward to a knighthood in later life.
Talking of knighthoods the academy awarded the exceptionally frail and exceptionally talented Sir Christopher Lee, now aged 88 years with its Fellowship. He had appeared in more films than anyone over 250 from hammer horrors, to the Lord Summerisle in the Wicker Man, Scaramanga in James Bond as the man with the Golden Gun and Saruman in The Lord of the Rings. Natalie Portman Herslag is a remarkable Israeli American
who has a degree is psychology from Harvard and for the Bafta and Golden Globe winning Performance in the Black Swan, under her stage name of Portman, swam 1 mile every morning for a year while she trained as a ballet dancer
The Social Network about Facebook Social Interaction and Inception, about dreams and reality, were also rewarded. For various reasons I decided against seeing any of these films in theatre but look forward to seeing them in about two years time on Sky. I did see Alice in Wonderland which won two awards and will see True Grit which also won an award and where I have viewed the originals in the past week. Interestingly the young girl is played by a young girl in her first film role. There was also an honourable mention for Made in Dagenham with Miranda Richardson for support actress for her role as Barbara Castle.
I was disappointed that no way was found to honour Pete Postlethwaite who died during the year although his performance in the Town was included as best supporting actor. There is always a moving list of those who have died over the year and every year there are an increasing number of those whose work I have enjoyed, sometimes loves and whose personalities became well regarded with Tony Curtis perhaps the most well known. Norman Wisdom had his exceptionally funny moments along with much that was silly. Susannah Yorke was an English rose and a political radical while Patricia Neal made fine films. Leslie Neilson was not everyone’s cuppa of tea and much was silly while Dennis Hopper had a good history. Ingrid Pitt was perhaps more notorious than brilliant. I will catch up with the others when the a similar list is remembered at the Oscars.
Another disappointment is that the Kids are Alright where Annette Banning and Julianne Moore were nominated for leading actress did not win in other categories. Girl with a Dragon Tattoo made in Swedish won Best Foreign film and is on my wish list. Other nominated films which I also wish to see are Another Year Mike Leigh and Jarvier Bardem in Biutiful. I have no inclination to see 127 hours which is about a man who had to cut off his arm in order to live and did so.
A special award went to the creator and the film makers of the Harry Potter series for their contribution to British cinema and to national income! More on Harry Potter another day although the series failed to engage to same level as Tolkien.
The Left hand of God has a great screen play for a moving story of the power of faith. This 1955 film was one of those which took my birth and care mothers together with their elder sister to the cinema as I reached adolescence and went to work at the age of sixteen and discovered live classical music, traditional and modern Jazz together with Swing, cycling and of course sex. There was the opportunity see the film once more, experienced at least once previously on the small screen. The story, based on a book by William Edmond Barrett, is that of an American Pilot who crashed in China during World War II and who is rescued by a Warlord who treats him as a trusted friend but also as a prisoner. When a replacement Catholic missionary priest Father O’Shea is killed by one of the men, the former pilot, Jim Carmady, played by Humphrey Bogart, takes his identity as a means of escape and goes to the mission for sanctuary until the next protected caravan will take him to the coast and freedom.
The Missionary post comprises a clinic hospital with an all purpose doctor and his wife who runs the school, and a nurse played by Gene Tierney, a young widow. The doctor has become cynical and anxious because of the local villages have stopped bringing their sick, the country is approaching civil war and anxiety about the warlord who so far as left them and the nearby Anglican mission alone. He and his wife feel there is something not quite right about their new man and becomes even more concerned when the nurse begins to show indications of reacting to the new arrival as a man.
It is evident that the arrival is a Catholic with a knowledge of the church in that he can give a blessing, and a sermon, but evades saying mass or giving the last rights saying he has lost his vestments and other essential kit which will have to be replaced. His live in assistant advises that some forty marriages and thirty christenings have accumulated. He begins to have an impact by asking to be blessed by the oldest man in the nearest village, by being able to speak Chinese and proving he is a man of the people with their interests at heart. On one hand he begins to like the role but on the other realises the potential damage he is doing. Unknown to everyone he manages to get a letter through to the Bishop in which he reveals the situation and the needs of the community. When he gets word that two priests are being sent by caravan he decides to tell Tierney the truth the night before their arrival.
Previously, his whereabouts becomes known to the Warlord who descends on the village threatening to burn it and the neighbouring Anglican parish to the ground unless Bogart returns. Bogart offers to play dice for his and the village freedom giving himself up for a further five years if he loses. He wins twice to save his and then the Anglican parish. This makes him a local legend. The priests arrive and tell Bogart that he will remain as a priest until he reaches the Bishop. Bogart has offered himself to be subject to the discipline of the church in exchange for responding to the needs of the local community. The senior priest is impressed by the genuine affection the community has for the departing man and Bogart leaves we are given the impression that the priest will write the kind of report to the Bishop suggesting that Bogart should be trained for the priesthood. Tierney has also rediscovered her faith as the situation becomes clear to her. The Doctor and his remain in ignorance but they too have found their calling reinforced.
Bogart is not as convincing in the role of the priest as Richard Burton in his role as the Whisky priest but has far more authenticity than say Bing Crosby in The Bells of Saint Mary. Lee J Cobb is also convincing as the Warlord and a good script and al round good acting make this film memorable if not a classic.
Also memorable but not as convincing is The Man in Black. I do not mean Valentine Dyall from the radio but Conrad Veidt who plays a submarine Captain Hardt who is sent on a mission to gain intelligence by making contact with local agents in the Orkney Islands before making an attack on the British Fleet at Scarpa Flow. This 1939 film portrays the German Navy at their home port in the same way as British Officers rather than as Nazi controlled Germany. This is very odd.
The film has a clever device in which Valerie Hobson plays two roles as Frau Tiel the German spy who gets to the Orkney’s to take up the post of a school mistress, and as Jill Blacklock the school mistress appointed to the post. The twist in the tale will come later as Jill is kidnapped on her way to the Islands and replaced by Frau Tiel who distances herself from the local vicar and his wife who suggest she should take lodging rather than live on her own, given the nature of the community full of naval officers and ratings on shore leave. She successful passes the strict security system which is enforced before anyone is allowed to get on the mainland ferries, and also on the island and interestingly the expectation of security is that there will be spies.
The twist in the tale is that in fact Hobson is not playing the German Spy but a British Intelligence agent after the spy has been captured. She also develops feelings for the Submarine Captain who is clearly a man of honour trying to do his duty. Similarly the British Naval officer who has been passed over and is providing the Germans with the intelligence of British fleet location is in fact another intelligence officer and I cannot remember if he is the brother or husband of Valerie (as intelligence officer pretending to be spy pretending to be the school teacher). To add to potential confusion about who is what or actually not as they seem the Valerie Hobson school teacher has a fiancée who is a Vicar, and who gets permission to visit his wife to be, only to find that she is not but he cannot hide his reactions in time so he is kidnapped but manages to escape and goes off to rescue his future partner.
Veidt also escapes and on the ferry back to the mainland on which Hobson is also travelling are also German naval prisoners of war. Veidt manages to release these and together they take over the ferry. The ferry is shelled and sunk by the U Boat but the passengers escape in the life boats. Part of the British fleet is on hand to sink the submarine so they are available to pick up the passengers, Veidt and the prisoners.
The great Bernard Miles plays a German Barman and Graham Stark as a hotel bellboy. Sebastian Shaw plays the naval intelligence man and Marius Goring plays Lt Shuster, the second in command of he Submarine who we see in Germany with Veidt before the mission commences and who takes over command of the sub. The interesting and commendable aspect of this film is that is not a black and white propaganda film but shows two sets of officers trying to do their duty for their respective homelands. This was a Michael Powell directed film produced by the great Alexander Korda and with the script written by Emeric Pressburger along with Roland Pertwee and J Storer Clouston who wrote the original novel. Powell and Pressburger went on to make 20 films together. I have seen this film before in television and may have seen the original in theatre.
From the Spy in Black to the Woman in Green, a 1945 Sherlock Holmes tale with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson. I must confess to never being fully comfortable with anyone else in these respective roles.
There are a succession of murders in different parts of London in which young women are murdered and one fo their fingers surgically removed, but why? Scotland Yard is baffled much to the anger of the head of detectives so Inspector Gregson, I do prefer La Strange of latter years, calls in Holmes for help who is also baffled. They go for a drink in a night club (unlikely) where Holmes sees Sir George Fenwick out with a very attractive young woman. She invites Sir George back to her flat where her maid is expecting them and where Sir George is then served a night cap. He cannot remember what has happened when he wakes up the following morning but then finds a severed finger from the latest murder in his coat pocket which upon discovering he buries after visit his female friend who can shred no light on the situation saying that he left early.
The man’s daughter comes to Holmes for help and Homes notes that she is being followed. They rush to the house of the girl only to find that her father has been murdered. She witnessed her father burying something in the garden which she digs up to find the severed finger.
It at this point that we learn, as also Holmes work out, that the reason for the murders is that the fingers have been planted on other men who are then blackmailed. And the organiser of this terrible crime? Well of course it is Moriarty.
Watson is called out to a former patient, something he has not done for sometime as he has to find and dust his medical bag. While away Moriarty calls to tell Homes to back off or Watson will be killed. Holmes appears to agree and Watson returns unharmed. Holmes then foils an attempt to kill himself by telling Watson to go over and shut the open window in the empty house opposite. When Watson does this, he believes he is too late to stop a sniper killing his friend. However Holmes has followed him into the house and explains that he put a bust of Julius Caesar behind the lighted window to give the impression that he was at home. Do you notice, he asks Watson .that all great men appear to have long noses? The sniper has been hypnotised. When they discovered the body of Sir George Fenwick he was clutching in his hand a match folder from the nightclub. The sniper is then himself killed as he is being led away. What is surprising at this point is that Homes is also not killed in the same event.
Holmes then makes friends with the woman he saw at the nightclub and she takes him back to the house where his drink is spiked with a sedative which makes him amenable to being hypnotised. Moriarty enters and arranges for Homes to write a suicide note and then go out to the ledge on the apartment balcony and jump to his death. Watson and the police arrive to arrest the criminals. Holmes has only pretended to by hypnotised having taken a drug to give the impression of being under the influence. Moriarty tries to escape but appears to fall to hid death from a pipe which gives way, Moriarty falls to his death three times in this series but manages to survive and to appear again. The film lasts less than 70 minutes and would have been regarded as a made for TV series in more recent times.
And now tot he final film for past days The Wrong Man, a lugubrious film with an excellent performance from Henry Fonda and Anthony Quale as his lawyer with Vera Miles as the wife who becomes also catatonic with her sense of personal failure.
What interested me is that the film is based on a true story which was published in the book by Maxwell Anderson The true Story of Emannuel Balestrero and also Life Magazine June 29th 1953. I have not been able to confirm if the film is accurate.
The beleaguered hero is a musician who plays at the Stork Club and he and his wife have constant money problems. When he goes to get a loan on the life insurance to pay for dental treatment his wife needs, staff call the police because of his likeness to the man who has robbed the counter staff twice and not been caught. He is unable to provide an alibi especially when no one is able to confirm that he stayed at a small hotel on a fishing trip on one fo the days when a robbery took place. He is able to get the names and addresses of two of the three men also staying at the hotel at the same time but finds that both have since died and the third name cannot be found. His lawyer does his best to make the case for mistaken identity and his interrogation of one witness upsets a juror who speaks out that forcing the course to determine a retrial at a later date.
Fortunately the actual robbery commits another hold up at a store and is apprehended. In the film teh detective who arrested Fonda sees the man being brought into the police station and makes the connection. I would not be surprised if in reality the man admitted to the previous offences and this resulted in Fonda being cleared. However the sub story that the impact fo all this on his wife as she becomes so depressed because she feels she is responsible by not managing their budget more effectively and being the cause of his visit to the insurance office for the loan. Her illness is such that the doctor feels she needs a sympathetic peaceful environment so he arranged for her to be treated in a small residential institution. When the credits role they tell the audience that it was a further two years before she recovered. The film also makes the point about the danger is using identity parades alone to make a prosecution especially because there was a time gap between the robberies and his visit. The film was produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and therefore has a well scripted element of suspense for those unfamiliar with the story
It has been a weekend of he British Academy awards and a number of good films: The left hand of God, The Man in Black, The Woman in Green and the Wrong Man. I have separately written on the sport. I enjoyed my food making a stir fry on Saturday after cooking a piece of Turkey Breast. On Sunday I enjoyed lamb chops and then Shepherds Pie having also had three sausages with mash for breakfast. Today I had two bacon roles having obtained some excellent bacon rashers for £1.50 a pack. I needed some prawns in shell and found three packs with reduced price tags to £3 from £4. For lunch I enjoyed a good salad and this evening cooked a second turkey breast slice with a Balti Curry and mushroom rice. I have also enjoyed a couple fo glasses of red wine from my final bottle in cabinet, which has remained to be drunk for the past year.
Last night the British Academy Awards took place at the Royal Opera House. The King’s Speech carried off all the major awards with one exception, that for Direction. I was particularly pleased that Geoffrey Rush took the BAFTA for best supporting actor as did Helena Bonham Carter who also played the Queen of Hearts in Alice. The films not only one the Best British Picture but also the Best Picture over all, I was also pleased that David Seidler was awarded for his screen play. He was similarly afflicted as a young person and was influenced by the struggle of the King. He write to the Queen mother to say that he wanted to wrote the screenplay but she responded saying please not in my lifetime. He kept his word and then the struggle was to find the finances for a film which although cost under £10 million was regarded as not having great appeal even though a fantastic cast was lined up as willing to participate, The film also won best music and fo course it became quickly clear that Colin Firth would win the Vest Actor as he had the Golden Globe. And can look forward to a knighthood in later life.
Talking of knighthoods the academy awarded the exceptionally frail and exceptionally talented Sir Christopher Lee, now aged 88 years with its Fellowship. He had appeared in more films than anyone over 250 from hammer horrors, to the Lord Summerisle in the Wicker Man, Scaramanga in James Bond as the man with the Golden Gun and Saruman in The Lord of the Rings. Natalie Portman Herslag is a remarkable Israeli American
who has a degree is psychology from Harvard and for the Bafta and Golden Globe winning Performance in the Black Swan, under her stage name of Portman, swam 1 mile every morning for a year while she trained as a ballet dancer
The Social Network about Facebook Social Interaction and Inception, about dreams and reality, were also rewarded. For various reasons I decided against seeing any of these films in theatre but look forward to seeing them in about two years time on Sky. I did see Alice in Wonderland which won two awards and will see True Grit which also won an award and where I have viewed the originals in the past week. Interestingly the young girl is played by a young girl in her first film role. There was also an honourable mention for Made in Dagenham with Miranda Richardson for support actress for her role as Barbara Castle.
I was disappointed that no way was found to honour Pete Postlethwaite who died during the year although his performance in the Town was included as best supporting actor. There is always a moving list of those who have died over the year and every year there are an increasing number of those whose work I have enjoyed, sometimes loves and whose personalities became well regarded with Tony Curtis perhaps the most well known. Norman Wisdom had his exceptionally funny moments along with much that was silly. Susannah Yorke was an English rose and a political radical while Patricia Neal made fine films. Leslie Neilson was not everyone’s cuppa of tea and much was silly while Dennis Hopper had a good history. Ingrid Pitt was perhaps more notorious than brilliant. I will catch up with the others when the a similar list is remembered at the Oscars.
Another disappointment is that the Kids are Alright where Annette Banning and Julianne Moore were nominated for leading actress did not win in other categories. Girl with a Dragon Tattoo made in Swedish won Best Foreign film and is on my wish list. Other nominated films which I also wish to see are Another Year Mike Leigh and Jarvier Bardem in Biutiful. I have no inclination to see 127 hours which is about a man who had to cut off his arm in order to live and did so.
A special award went to the creator and the film makers of the Harry Potter series for their contribution to British cinema and to national income! More on Harry Potter another day although the series failed to engage to same level as Tolkien.
The Left hand of God has a great screen play for a moving story of the power of faith. This 1955 film was one of those which took my birth and care mothers together with their elder sister to the cinema as I reached adolescence and went to work at the age of sixteen and discovered live classical music, traditional and modern Jazz together with Swing, cycling and of course sex. There was the opportunity see the film once more, experienced at least once previously on the small screen. The story, based on a book by William Edmond Barrett, is that of an American Pilot who crashed in China during World War II and who is rescued by a Warlord who treats him as a trusted friend but also as a prisoner. When a replacement Catholic missionary priest Father O’Shea is killed by one of the men, the former pilot, Jim Carmady, played by Humphrey Bogart, takes his identity as a means of escape and goes to the mission for sanctuary until the next protected caravan will take him to the coast and freedom.
The Missionary post comprises a clinic hospital with an all purpose doctor and his wife who runs the school, and a nurse played by Gene Tierney, a young widow. The doctor has become cynical and anxious because of the local villages have stopped bringing their sick, the country is approaching civil war and anxiety about the warlord who so far as left them and the nearby Anglican mission alone. He and his wife feel there is something not quite right about their new man and becomes even more concerned when the nurse begins to show indications of reacting to the new arrival as a man.
It is evident that the arrival is a Catholic with a knowledge of the church in that he can give a blessing, and a sermon, but evades saying mass or giving the last rights saying he has lost his vestments and other essential kit which will have to be replaced. His live in assistant advises that some forty marriages and thirty christenings have accumulated. He begins to have an impact by asking to be blessed by the oldest man in the nearest village, by being able to speak Chinese and proving he is a man of the people with their interests at heart. On one hand he begins to like the role but on the other realises the potential damage he is doing. Unknown to everyone he manages to get a letter through to the Bishop in which he reveals the situation and the needs of the community. When he gets word that two priests are being sent by caravan he decides to tell Tierney the truth the night before their arrival.
Previously, his whereabouts becomes known to the Warlord who descends on the village threatening to burn it and the neighbouring Anglican parish to the ground unless Bogart returns. Bogart offers to play dice for his and the village freedom giving himself up for a further five years if he loses. He wins twice to save his and then the Anglican parish. This makes him a local legend. The priests arrive and tell Bogart that he will remain as a priest until he reaches the Bishop. Bogart has offered himself to be subject to the discipline of the church in exchange for responding to the needs of the local community. The senior priest is impressed by the genuine affection the community has for the departing man and Bogart leaves we are given the impression that the priest will write the kind of report to the Bishop suggesting that Bogart should be trained for the priesthood. Tierney has also rediscovered her faith as the situation becomes clear to her. The Doctor and his remain in ignorance but they too have found their calling reinforced.
Bogart is not as convincing in the role of the priest as Richard Burton in his role as the Whisky priest but has far more authenticity than say Bing Crosby in The Bells of Saint Mary. Lee J Cobb is also convincing as the Warlord and a good script and al round good acting make this film memorable if not a classic.
Also memorable but not as convincing is The Man in Black. I do not mean Valentine Dyall from the radio but Conrad Veidt who plays a submarine Captain Hardt who is sent on a mission to gain intelligence by making contact with local agents in the Orkney Islands before making an attack on the British Fleet at Scarpa Flow. This 1939 film portrays the German Navy at their home port in the same way as British Officers rather than as Nazi controlled Germany. This is very odd.
The film has a clever device in which Valerie Hobson plays two roles as Frau Tiel the German spy who gets to the Orkney’s to take up the post of a school mistress, and as Jill Blacklock the school mistress appointed to the post. The twist in the tale will come later as Jill is kidnapped on her way to the Islands and replaced by Frau Tiel who distances herself from the local vicar and his wife who suggest she should take lodging rather than live on her own, given the nature of the community full of naval officers and ratings on shore leave. She successful passes the strict security system which is enforced before anyone is allowed to get on the mainland ferries, and also on the island and interestingly the expectation of security is that there will be spies.
The twist in the tale is that in fact Hobson is not playing the German Spy but a British Intelligence agent after the spy has been captured. She also develops feelings for the Submarine Captain who is clearly a man of honour trying to do his duty. Similarly the British Naval officer who has been passed over and is providing the Germans with the intelligence of British fleet location is in fact another intelligence officer and I cannot remember if he is the brother or husband of Valerie (as intelligence officer pretending to be spy pretending to be the school teacher). To add to potential confusion about who is what or actually not as they seem the Valerie Hobson school teacher has a fiancée who is a Vicar, and who gets permission to visit his wife to be, only to find that she is not but he cannot hide his reactions in time so he is kidnapped but manages to escape and goes off to rescue his future partner.
Veidt also escapes and on the ferry back to the mainland on which Hobson is also travelling are also German naval prisoners of war. Veidt manages to release these and together they take over the ferry. The ferry is shelled and sunk by the U Boat but the passengers escape in the life boats. Part of the British fleet is on hand to sink the submarine so they are available to pick up the passengers, Veidt and the prisoners.
The great Bernard Miles plays a German Barman and Graham Stark as a hotel bellboy. Sebastian Shaw plays the naval intelligence man and Marius Goring plays Lt Shuster, the second in command of he Submarine who we see in Germany with Veidt before the mission commences and who takes over command of the sub. The interesting and commendable aspect of this film is that is not a black and white propaganda film but shows two sets of officers trying to do their duty for their respective homelands. This was a Michael Powell directed film produced by the great Alexander Korda and with the script written by Emeric Pressburger along with Roland Pertwee and J Storer Clouston who wrote the original novel. Powell and Pressburger went on to make 20 films together. I have seen this film before in television and may have seen the original in theatre.
From the Spy in Black to the Woman in Green, a 1945 Sherlock Holmes tale with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson. I must confess to never being fully comfortable with anyone else in these respective roles.
There are a succession of murders in different parts of London in which young women are murdered and one fo their fingers surgically removed, but why? Scotland Yard is baffled much to the anger of the head of detectives so Inspector Gregson, I do prefer La Strange of latter years, calls in Holmes for help who is also baffled. They go for a drink in a night club (unlikely) where Holmes sees Sir George Fenwick out with a very attractive young woman. She invites Sir George back to her flat where her maid is expecting them and where Sir George is then served a night cap. He cannot remember what has happened when he wakes up the following morning but then finds a severed finger from the latest murder in his coat pocket which upon discovering he buries after visit his female friend who can shred no light on the situation saying that he left early.
The man’s daughter comes to Holmes for help and Homes notes that she is being followed. They rush to the house of the girl only to find that her father has been murdered. She witnessed her father burying something in the garden which she digs up to find the severed finger.
It at this point that we learn, as also Holmes work out, that the reason for the murders is that the fingers have been planted on other men who are then blackmailed. And the organiser of this terrible crime? Well of course it is Moriarty.
Watson is called out to a former patient, something he has not done for sometime as he has to find and dust his medical bag. While away Moriarty calls to tell Homes to back off or Watson will be killed. Holmes appears to agree and Watson returns unharmed. Holmes then foils an attempt to kill himself by telling Watson to go over and shut the open window in the empty house opposite. When Watson does this, he believes he is too late to stop a sniper killing his friend. However Holmes has followed him into the house and explains that he put a bust of Julius Caesar behind the lighted window to give the impression that he was at home. Do you notice, he asks Watson .that all great men appear to have long noses? The sniper has been hypnotised. When they discovered the body of Sir George Fenwick he was clutching in his hand a match folder from the nightclub. The sniper is then himself killed as he is being led away. What is surprising at this point is that Homes is also not killed in the same event.
Holmes then makes friends with the woman he saw at the nightclub and she takes him back to the house where his drink is spiked with a sedative which makes him amenable to being hypnotised. Moriarty enters and arranges for Homes to write a suicide note and then go out to the ledge on the apartment balcony and jump to his death. Watson and the police arrive to arrest the criminals. Holmes has only pretended to by hypnotised having taken a drug to give the impression of being under the influence. Moriarty tries to escape but appears to fall to hid death from a pipe which gives way, Moriarty falls to his death three times in this series but manages to survive and to appear again. The film lasts less than 70 minutes and would have been regarded as a made for TV series in more recent times.
And now tot he final film for past days The Wrong Man, a lugubrious film with an excellent performance from Henry Fonda and Anthony Quale as his lawyer with Vera Miles as the wife who becomes also catatonic with her sense of personal failure.
What interested me is that the film is based on a true story which was published in the book by Maxwell Anderson The true Story of Emannuel Balestrero and also Life Magazine June 29th 1953. I have not been able to confirm if the film is accurate.
The beleaguered hero is a musician who plays at the Stork Club and he and his wife have constant money problems. When he goes to get a loan on the life insurance to pay for dental treatment his wife needs, staff call the police because of his likeness to the man who has robbed the counter staff twice and not been caught. He is unable to provide an alibi especially when no one is able to confirm that he stayed at a small hotel on a fishing trip on one fo the days when a robbery took place. He is able to get the names and addresses of two of the three men also staying at the hotel at the same time but finds that both have since died and the third name cannot be found. His lawyer does his best to make the case for mistaken identity and his interrogation of one witness upsets a juror who speaks out that forcing the course to determine a retrial at a later date.
Fortunately the actual robbery commits another hold up at a store and is apprehended. In the film teh detective who arrested Fonda sees the man being brought into the police station and makes the connection. I would not be surprised if in reality the man admitted to the previous offences and this resulted in Fonda being cleared. However the sub story that the impact fo all this on his wife as she becomes so depressed because she feels she is responsible by not managing their budget more effectively and being the cause of his visit to the insurance office for the loan. Her illness is such that the doctor feels she needs a sympathetic peaceful environment so he arranged for her to be treated in a small residential institution. When the credits role they tell the audience that it was a further two years before she recovered. The film also makes the point about the danger is using identity parades alone to make a prosecution especially because there was a time gap between the robberies and his visit. The film was produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and therefore has a well scripted element of suspense for those unfamiliar with the story
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