Reviews

Never quite imagined Robert Armstrong as the romantic male lead -- he's best as Carl Denham in KING KONG. This is from KONG's director, Ernest Schoesdack, but is not nearly as memorable. Some rather talky scenes seem static and dull. Some of the 'cute' bits have dated very badly. But there's one good plot twist in it. And it's always good to see Ralph Bellamy at work. The cast works hard and makes it passable. So I'd say it's a minor work but worth seeing for the cast. Schoesdack has done better. On a smaller palette, he doesn't quite know what to do. The foggy exteriors of "London" (all a backlot) look pretty good. But the villains are overcome rather tamely.

This is a brilliant half-hour TV Episode that Welles did to prove he could do television. He uses narration, stills, live-action and minimal sets to great advantage... and I see many similarities to later series, such as TWILIGHT ZONE, THRILLER and OUTER LIMITS. Who knows who might have seen this and been influenced by it? I managed to catch it at the American Cinematheque, where they played one of only two prints in existence. Let's hope this makes its way to DVD -- everyone should see it.

This is a stunningly beautiful version of the story with exquisite black-and-white cinematography and great performances in what is pretty much a two-person film (until the end). Dassin does a superb job all around and Schildkraut is amazing. I caught this on TCM -- THANK GOD FOR TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES! This should be available on DVD!