Reviews

Running around in circles getting nowhere. (But the camels snorted extremely well.)

I've now seen this film twice and enjoyed it on both occasions. Ian McKellen was the ideal choice for the role of Sherlock Holmes in old age., but there were some puzzling aspects to the plot(s). Things didn't quite match up. For help, I consulted the entry in Wikipedia, which provided a certain degree of assistance but still left me a little perplexed about the basic point of the film.

Finally, I read the original novel by Mitch Cullin, 'A Slight Trick of the Mind', which is beautifully and sensitively written. I found that the film-makers had taken a huge number of liberties with the author's plot and greatly distorted things in the process. muffling his original intentions and opting, inevitably perhaps, for a happy ending. Irrelevant bits and pieces had been inserted, moreover, which - while enjoyable enough in themselves, and sometimes quite amusing - were intended, basically, to "pander to the gallery". The producers had opted for an easy way out and were bearing in mind the potential box-office takings.

There are three separate narratives, in three different time-frames, being developed in the story. It might have been helpful, and more in the spirit of the book, if it had been filmed in a black-and-white format - and even, indeed, if the different narratives had been gently tinted in different colours, as a way of distinguishing between them. Ideally, the production should have been undertaken by a modern-day Ingmar Bergman

I won't spoil matters by going into precise details as to how the film differs from the book, but would strongly urge people to read the latter before reaching a final judgment. I readily concede that the film as such is extremely enjoyable. But if it had truly reflected the author's intentions then it could also have been a great one.

The music is is far too loud and there is a general clumsiness about the production. The prolonged twists and turns of the plot eventually become rather exhausting. But it is nevertheless a fascinating experience to see the young James Mason in action and to note that the role he plays foreshadows not only his performance in 'Odd Man Out' (1947) but also his final moments in 'A Star Is Born' (1954).

I saw this film in the cinema with my parents in 1954 and I'm obliged to confess that we thought it quite funny at the time. Tony Hancock's voice was familiar to us, but it was the first time we'd ever seen him on screen; apart from the Goon shows, Peter Sellars was best known to the general public for a variety of characters he played in the radio series 'Ray's a Laugh'. They both came across as quite amusing. The tastes of the viewing-public are now far more sophisticated, and it is easy to berate the director for not having made better use of the (potentially) huge pool of talent he had at his command. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! Sixty-six years ago, it wasn't such a bad comedy as all that

This film would have been made as a "quota quickie" in order to help secure a Government grant - the Board of Trade wanted British studios to export as many of their products as possible but a certain number of films had to be made each year in order to qualify for the cash.

This meant that a great many films, with perfectly decent casts and directors, had to be churned out at top speed on a kind of conveyor belt at the minimum of cost. It was good practice for all concerned, providing them with valuable experience when it came to producing films intended to have a more lasting significance.

This was a thriller based on a tale by Edgar Lustgarten. It holds the attention but is not intended to be anything more than entertainment: to while away a couple of hours. One should not probe for deep significance in the plot or the quality of the acting, although the cast obviously did their patriotic best with the material to hand and did a reasonably good job.