User Reviews

Beautiful scenery is the highlight of "I Thank a Fool," which stars Susan Hayward, Peter Finch and Diane Cilento. Finch plays a prosecutor who manages to get Hayward sentenced to prison for the mercy killing of her boyfriend. When she gets out, she has to change her name, but still, she can't get a job. Finch reappears and hires her to live in his home and take care of his unstable wife (Cilento). When she winds up dead, suspicion falls on Hayward.

This is a very uneven film that ends somewhat abruptly. It could have used a couple of scenes right before the last one. One of the posters here said the ending was no surprise. Well, it was to me. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

The acting is good, with Hayward in a role that calls for her to be quite somber. Peter Finch is excellent. He's very compelling and deliberately keeps his character ambiguous. Diane Cilento has the role with all the histrionics. She's exquisitely beautiful and delicate, and one does feel great sympathy for the character.

All in all, this was a rather blah experience.

***SPOILERS*** Not exactly what you would have thought it being a film about mercy killing or euthanasia the film "I Thank a Fool" is about the foolhardy attempt of British prosecutor Stephen Dane'a, Peter Finch, attempt to cure his severely mentally unbalanced wife-due to a car accident-Liane, Diane Cilento, and get a doctor who's been disbarred who has no authority to have her committed. Dane finds that doctor in Christine Allerson, Susan Hayward,who he prosecuted in a mercy killing case, of her boyfriend, that put her behind bars for some 18 months! Out of work and desperately needing a job to support herself Christine jumps at the offer by Dane not realizing what's really waiting for her.

It turns out that Liane's condition is related to her father Captain "Cappy" Farriss,Cyril Cusack,who was killed in the car crash that she survived and has held herself responsible, even though "Cappy" was behind the wheel, for his death ever since. With Christine helpless to have Liane get the proper medical help, by being committed, that she so desperately needs all she can do is watch her slowly go off the deep end and eventually towards self-destruction! That until Liane's dead father "The Captain" shows up unexpectedly and fully alive looking for a hand out, or cash, from her husband who it turns out he's been blackmailing, about his secret life on the wild side, for the last five years!

****SPOILERS***With Mr. Dane refusing to play along with Captain Ferris shake-down attempt his wife Liane who's been spooked not just by her father coming back from the dead but him living in sin, back in Ireland, at his broken down house with hookers for company really loses it and attempts to jump off a cliff the very one her mom, also in a car accident, ended up killing herself. Liane soon ends up being committed for her own protection in a failed attempted suicide attempt. Being put under Christina's care Liane is soon found dead from an overdose of sleeping pills that Christina is accused of giving her! As the truth comes out at her trial it was her drunken father Captain Ferris deadly concoction thinking, in his alcoholic state of mind, that the more pills that she takes the better it would be for her that did Liane in.! Exposed as his daughter's killer, even though he didn't mean to do it, Captain Ferris tries to escape from the courtroom and being too drunk too see clearly slips and falls to his death, off a cliff some 50 feet below, before the police could catch up and arrest him.

Susan Hayward and Peter Finch could have been a great screen team and should have gotten a much better story than I Thank A Fool. I'm betting Susan did this one for a trip to the British Isles.

This is one which casts Susan Hayward as a doctor who goes to prison as a result of a euthanasia done by Hayward on her lover and teacher. Of course she loses her license to practice medicine.

So imagine her surprise when on release from prison, she's offered a job as a nurse companion to Diane Cilento, a very disturbed young woman. To make things even more bizarre the husband who offered the job to her is the lawyer who prosecuted her in Old Bailey, Peter Finch.

If that's not a bizarre plot premise I don't know what is. As for Finch he just says he believes in giving people a break.

Diane Cilento has some very good scenes as the wife. As it turns out she's got good reason to be disturbed. The subject of incest is very delicately broached here with the appearance of her bottom feeding father Cyril Cusack. The film does better by Cusack and Cilento than for its leads.

A story way beneath the considerable talents of its stars.

No wonder Susan Hayward took a hiatus for several years after this film. Other than "Ada," "Back Street," and "Where Loves Has Gone," Miss Hayward's films of the 1960s were not very good and "I Thank A Fool" is no exception.

As a doctor convicted of murdering her lover, Hayward is soon released and finds employment with the prosecuting attorney who helped send her to prison. He is married to an emotionally unbalanced woman, Diane Cilento, in a very good performance. The latter's relationship with her father is in absolute turmoil.

When Cilento turns up dead, Hayward is naturally suspected based upon her previous action.

The surprise ending really fools no one. The pain on Hayward's face was probably her disgust in having to appear in something as boring as this. She probably thought of "My Foolish Heart," With A Song in My Heart," I'll Cry Tomorrow," I Want to Live," and "Woman Obsessed," which were so much better and showcased her brilliant talent.

This is EXCLUSIVELY regarding the end. It IS INDEED A SPOILER.

If the only thing you happened to see was the last scene you would draw the conclusion that there had been some long drawn out secret love affair/relationship; you would be wrong. It ended with a Susan Hayward smile after words that could not be taken back had been screamed in a room full of people. She made brutal accusations that were irretrievable. There was never (even) a friendship. Instead, it was a seemingly strained, not to mention weird, employee-employer relationship that suddenly changed for the better after two deaths in (perhaps) just as many days. One might infer that they rode off into the sunset and lived happily ever after. For most us, however, we would have found dinner that evening a bit awkward. If they had added another scene after that one it would have been Hayward imitating Rosanne Rosanna Danna, "never mind..." Someone else mentioned that a couple of extra scenes prior to the last one would have been better; I would second that.

Very strange Ending, was it a secret affair with finch and Hayward ending up together, based upon the inquest scene there was no way she would want to have anything to do with finch. If the smiles and driving away together meant they were together, there should have been a set up scene