What is it about Brighton? It seems to have become the nexus of corruption, violence and crime in British film, and, with 'Brighton Rock' a year or so later, this film established the city as the home of British Noir.
It may be a slice of Victorian Sensation Fiction adapted for the screen, but the plot is pure Film Noir. Googie Withers is the Femme Fatale, luring a disillusioned young man into a plot to kill her husband, but ultimately undone by circumstance. Gordon Jackson is a more virtuous hero than either Fred MacMurray in 'Double Indemnity' or John Garfield in 'The Postman Always Rings Twice', unlike them innocent of his paramour's cold blooded scheming but like them crucially providing the key to Getting Away With It.
Quite obviously, this film isn't up to the standard of those two true Noirs, particularly Billy Wilder's classic; there's too many subplots fighting for attention - Jean Ireland's singing ambitions, Sally-Anne Howes' Animal Rights antics, Mervyn Johns' education in sensitivity - and they all ultimately fall by the wayside, payed nothing but lip service in the final scene. Unfortunately, they detract from the main plot enough to weaken it - it doesn't get enough screen time, and the resolution feels just a little too easy.
Googie Withers, however, is clearly having great fun as one of the British screen's few true Femme Fatales - her only real rivals are Joan Greenwood in 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' and the scenery chewing Margaret Lockwood in 'The Wicked Lady'. She has a remarkable face - sensual but not conventionally beautiful - and she was never more lovingly shot than she was here by Robert Hamer. She's one of the few British stars who could convincingly play a tough, working class landlady, trading insults and blows with her husband, but with the allure to fascinate both naive youths and seasoned womanisers (Greenwood would have been too refined, Lockwood too obviously a man-eater). She's so good that she unbalances the film - she has so much appeal that her defeat leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and so strong that we can't believe that she'd simply give in as she does. It's a common problem that the wicked women of the forties and fifties - and just as relevantly, of Victorian Melodrama - are so much more vital and entertaining than their patronising male victims or vapid female rivals that the endings seem too moralistic by half. I want them to win. The one flaw in 'Double Indemnity' is Barbara Stanwyck's final, fatal change of heart. Much better for her to have gone out like Jane Greer in 'Out of the Past', a trail of dead men in her wake.
Nobody else matches Withers, although Jean Ireland isn't as bland as the role she is playing, and Mervyn Johns is convincingly starchy as the tyrannical patriarch. Gordon Jackson is likable, particularly in his scenes of dissolution, but from whom did he inherit that Scottish accent? Sally-Anne Howes borders on the annoying, but that's the part she's playing. Mary Merrall is dignified as the mother, and good in her quiet confrontations with her husband, but she has little else to do. Catherine Lacey is superlative in the small but significant role of a 'respectable' barfly - she turns out to be more than just comic relief.
Hamer's direction is unshowy, but gets the most out of the period sets. If only he could have stripped down the script and adapted the film to respond more to Googie Withers' performance, this could have been a minor classic. As it is, it pales next to Ealing's comedies, but certainly has its moments. There's no other film quite like it.
It may be a slice of Victorian Sensation Fiction adapted for the screen, but the plot is pure Film Noir. Googie Withers is the Femme Fatale, luring a disillusioned young man into a plot to kill her husband, but ultimately undone by circumstance. Gordon Jackson is a more virtuous hero than either Fred MacMurray in 'Double Indemnity' or John Garfield in 'The Postman Always Rings Twice', unlike them innocent of his paramour's cold blooded scheming but like them crucially providing the key to Getting Away With It.
Quite obviously, this film isn't up to the standard of those two true Noirs, particularly Billy Wilder's classic; there's too many subplots fighting for attention - Jean Ireland's singing ambitions, Sally-Anne Howes' Animal Rights antics, Mervyn Johns' education in sensitivity - and they all ultimately fall by the wayside, payed nothing but lip service in the final scene. Unfortunately, they detract from the main plot enough to weaken it - it doesn't get enough screen time, and the resolution feels just a little too easy.
Googie Withers, however, is clearly having great fun as one of the British screen's few true Femme Fatales - her only real rivals are Joan Greenwood in 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' and the scenery chewing Margaret Lockwood in 'The Wicked Lady'. She has a remarkable face - sensual but not conventionally beautiful - and she was never more lovingly shot than she was here by Robert Hamer. She's one of the few British stars who could convincingly play a tough, working class landlady, trading insults and blows with her husband, but with the allure to fascinate both naive youths and seasoned womanisers (Greenwood would have been too refined, Lockwood too obviously a man-eater). She's so good that she unbalances the film - she has so much appeal that her defeat leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and so strong that we can't believe that she'd simply give in as she does. It's a common problem that the wicked women of the forties and fifties - and just as relevantly, of Victorian Melodrama - are so much more vital and entertaining than their patronising male victims or vapid female rivals that the endings seem too moralistic by half. I want them to win. The one flaw in 'Double Indemnity' is Barbara Stanwyck's final, fatal change of heart. Much better for her to have gone out like Jane Greer in 'Out of the Past', a trail of dead men in her wake.
Nobody else matches Withers, although Jean Ireland isn't as bland as the role she is playing, and Mervyn Johns is convincingly starchy as the tyrannical patriarch. Gordon Jackson is likable, particularly in his scenes of dissolution, but from whom did he inherit that Scottish accent? Sally-Anne Howes borders on the annoying, but that's the part she's playing. Mary Merrall is dignified as the mother, and good in her quiet confrontations with her husband, but she has little else to do. Catherine Lacey is superlative in the small but significant role of a 'respectable' barfly - she turns out to be more than just comic relief.
Hamer's direction is unshowy, but gets the most out of the period sets. If only he could have stripped down the script and adapted the film to respond more to Googie Withers' performance, this could have been a minor classic. As it is, it pales next to Ealing's comedies, but certainly has its moments. There's no other film quite like it.