Finger of Guilt (1956)

Directed and produced by Alec C Snowden

American Reggie Wilson (Richard Basehart) has established himself in Britain. Escaping a scandal in Hollywood, he is now a producer at a small English film studio. Well-liked by his boss, Ben Case (Roger Livesay), he has married Case’s daughter (Faith Brook) and is in the midst of an ambitious movie-project. But letters from a woman he’s never met keep arriving, asking for nothing but referring to a love affair that never occurred. What does she want, and how far will she go to get it?

An entertaining movie propelled by fine acting, Finger of Guilt suffers from a couple of flaws that nonetheless do not cripple its whole value. The always solid Basehart gives a convincing performance of a lothario - his penchant for women caused his self-exile from California - who has settled down and is content in his new life. His frustration is all the more credible given that he is trying to live down his reputation while the threat to his happiness is depending upon that same reputation.

Mary Murphy is also impressive as the woman in question. Her smooth and persuasive manner is perfect for the part, since the audience is never certain whether it comes from an almost professional background of making trouble or from sincerity. Roger Livesey by this time had moved completely into supporting rôles but adds another necessary element to the story. The other actors are much less significant, though David Lodge may be noted as a police sergeant whose calm impartiality is no doubt an asset to the force.

The direction is engaging. The producer is credited as director, but the real man behind the camera seems to have been Jospeh Losey, a blacklisted Hollywood director. In some prints, he is credited under a semi-pseudonym. Why he needed to hide his involvement when he had moved to England to escape his recent past - like Reggie Wilson - I can’t say. In any case, his work, like that in The Criminal (reviewed on this blog in December), elevates the story. It creates a real sense of a man facing an overwhelming threat coming from nothing that he has done. Again, the director and his character seem to have similar predicaments.

The problem with Finger of Guilt lies with the story. Firstly, the person or persons responsible for Wilson’s problem do not - or are not shown to - have enough motivation. This may be my fondness for mysteries coming to the fore, mysteries which ‘play fair’ with the viewer by giving them enough clues to uncover the culprit themselves. After all, Finger of Guilt is more mystery than crime-story, the latter of which being under no obligation either to have a mystery or to allow viewers to unravel it.

More pertinent is what I think is an error in plotting. The individual who ultimately proves the villain is sent to Newcastle to inquire into the letters Reggie keeps receiving. While there, that person conceives of a plot against Reggie. But there is no reason for the letters to be sent until that plot is devised. Why they were sent initially is not convincingly stated, since we are meant to believe Reggie that he and the woman in question have never met. This circle of letters not being written until there is a reason to write them, and no reason to write them until they are first sent, is a flaw in the plot - unless I missed something vital that solved the paradox.

Whatever the answer to this problem, it does not greatly affect the rest of the film, which, between the acting and the directing, is a suspenseful and enjoyable who - and why - dun nit, without a murder.

Kingsman: the Secret Service (2014)

Directed by Matthew Vaughan; produced by Adam Bohlin, David Reid and Matthew Vaughan

‘Eggsy’ Unwin (Taron Egerton), while a decent young man, is nonetheless headed down the road to crime and ruin. Instead, after being arrested for car-theft, he is recruited - as his father had been before him - by the mysterious Harry Hart (Colin Firth), to join a secret intelligence organisation dedicated to maintaining peace and security around the globe. Finding his place in the new service is tough, and he’ll need everything he knows to help defeat a megalomaniac (Samuel L Jackson) intent on re-making the world.

Kingsman: the Secret Service is a comic-book version of a spy movie; not surprising, as it is adapted from a comic-book. More incredible than James Bond in the Roger Moore era, it is an entertaining adventure flick, despite some flaws that viewers might find off-putting.

First and foremost, Kingsman: the Secret Service is an action movie, and in this, it delivers. There is plenty of fast-paced fight-scenes, not entirely realistic but convincing enough. There are plenty of computer graphics, but also what appears to be some solid stunt-work. This is in part a credit to the direction, which provides excitement without quite over-doing it, except in two disappointing scenes.

The screenplay provides an intriguing origin for the premise. Though not owing allegiance to any government, the Kingsman organisation is apparently staffed entirely by Britons, their progenitors being of the same nationality.

The story turns on its head the long-held fashion of portraying aristocracy as little better than villains. Much is made of gentlemanly behaviour - though Harry appreciates that a gentleman can come from any source, and Eggsy is the product of a working-class housing estate - and elected officials receive short shrift from the script. The result is that Harry Hart comes across as one of the more interesting characters in adventure movies, rather like an older more physical version of Firth’s Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (1995), after his outlook had been broadened.

The dialogue provides some good lines and a clever, if somewhat self-conscious exchange between Firth’s and Jackson’s characters about spy movies and how they like them far-fetched. Despite this, the actors play the movie straight; a farcical approach would have sunk the film.

The acting is very good, as it should be with the cast. Aside from Firth and Jackson, veterans include Mark Strong - I’ve lost count of the number of films he and Firth have been in together, from the very serious (eg. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) to the comedic (eg. Fever Pitch) - and Michael Caine. Relative newcomers Egerton and Sophie Cookson handle themselves well.

The disadvantage to Kingsman: the Secret Service is the amount and intensity of the violence. Such a feature is in itself not a detriment to certain films, but in what is essentially a light-hearted adventure picture, it is jarring. This is especially the case in a massacre scene which goes on too long, about two thirds through the movie.

Aside from the blood and guts, and the spilling thereof, Kingsman: the Secret Service is a fun, sometimes funny, sometimes even satirical, look at spy flicks, given a touch of class by Firth’s performance.

Citizen X (1995)

Directed by Chris Gerolmo; produced by Timothy Marx

In the mid-1980s, two police officers, Lieutenant Viktor Burakov (Stephen Rea) and Colonel Mikhail Fetisov (Donald Sutherland), in the southern Russian city of Rostov, realise that they had a serial killer murdering people, most of them young. As evidence builds of the extent of the crime spree, the pair face increasing obstacles trying to end the killing and bring the man responsible to justice.

Citizen X is an interesting and, in some ways, a fascinating movie, more than it is an excellent movie, It certainly has quality, particularly in the performances of Sutherland and Max von Sydow, but other aspects of the actual film-making are ordinary. The director, who also adapted the book (The Killer Department) about the subject, wrote Mississippi Burning. Gerolmo is, perhaps, a better writer than director, though he doesn’t stand out in either field in Citizen X.

The story itself is the main attraction, I think, depicting, with some fictionalisation, the hunt for Andrei Chikatilo (Jeffrey DeMunn), the first acknowledged serial killer in the Soviet Union. The progress the movie follows is less police procedural than political drama: the hurdles that the police must overcome are principally those of bureaucracy and entrenched ideology.

There was no precedent in the Soviet Union for an investigation such as that which Burakov begins; the very notion that there might be a serial killer in the country is dismissed by local Communist Party chiefs: such a phenomenon occurs only in capitalist nations. To admit to such a creature existing in the USSR is to admit something is wrong with the country and its system. Burakov stumbles along in his work, driven more by passion than expertise; he has no model to follow, no textbook. This takes an immense emotional toll on him.

Part of the problem is shown to be the politics involved in every aspect of a totalitarian state. This is epitomised by Fetisov, whom Sutherland makes the most interesting character in the film. At first, he is a cynical, sardonic man, more a smooth dealer and broker of favours than a policeman; he’s spent his adult life negotiating the best bargains he can get from friends, rivals and superiors, and is amused, more than anything else, by Burakov’s earnestness. Gradually, he begins to take a real interest in the investigation, and his method of championing Burakov may not be to the latter’s liking, but is effective. Fetisov’s change, as he re-orients his way of working, without altering them all together, is intriguing.

As dedicated as everyone on the detective team becomes, it is the changes wrought by glasnost that influence the case the most. The abruptness of these changes comes almost over-night in the movie and, while this may not reflect events in real life, it may: life in the Soviet Union, where little was what it seemed or was claimed, and much hidden, was, in some ways, quite close to life in George Orwell’s Oceania.

While the writing and direction is adequate, and the cast most capable (it includes veterans such as Joss Ackland, Imelda Staunton, John Wood, and Max von Sydow as a psychiatrist who’s quietly excited to do his part), it is the setting - the time and place - that will hold the interest of anyone watching Citizen X.

Touchez pas au grisbi (1954)

Directed by Jacques Becker; produced by Robert Dorfman

Max (Jean Gabin) isn’t as young as he used to be. In fact, it’s time he retired from his business. His business? Crime. And it pays. He has 50,000,000 francs in gold bars hidden away. He intends to turn it into cash, split it with his long-time partner Riton (Rene Dary), and live quietly and well. But Riton talks too much to his girlfriend, Josy (Jean Moreau), and she talks too much to her man on the side, Angelo (Lino Ventura). Now, too many people know about Max’s gold, and he could lose his retirement fund - and maybe his life.

Touchez pas au grisbi was Jean Gabin’s return to the top tier of French cinema actors after his hiatus during the Second World War (in which he served with Free French combat forces) and his subsequent dozen or so unpopular mediocre films. After this, though, there was no looking back.

The appeal of Touchez pas au grisbi grows as one progresses through the film and, indeed, with further consideration after one’s viewing. Certainly, it is Gabin who anchors the movie. His is a strong presence, and, though not always on screen, is usually felt in every scene. His character is at an age at which he is old enough for retirement, but young enough still to enjoy it. Gabin shows Max to be bored with things that others seem to think would excite him - and may once have done - such as a night-club floor-show with beautiful women. Max has settled down to one girl now, and is content with the situation.

The other actors are also very good, whether long-time veterans such as Gabin and Dary (a former child-star), or newcomers like Moreau. Ventura, the erstwhile competitive wrestler and school drop-out, is very good in this, his first acting job. His Angelo seems to have a younger version of Max’s cunning and ruthlessness, without the intelligence and sympathy.

The script makes Max’s age a convincing part of the film, with such lines as “These days, staying up past midnight is overtime”, and showing Max associating best with people his own age. The character is nicknamed Max le Menteur (“Max the Liar”), yet the term suggests ‘mentor’, which he is to younger characters. Gabin’s real-life part as a big name in French cinema of the 1930s, making a comeback in the ‘50s, appears to translate straight into the role.

The direction is interesting in that it incorporates a great deal of mundane detail without causing tedium. Some scenes show Max preparing for bed, or driving across Paris; these need not have been included but add something to the notion that he is now a more ordinary man in his tastes than he once had been. Yet, he is also the tough guy of his youth, and the climax is an exciting show-down between criminals, when slightly podgy and bespectacled men demonstrate that their vigour and violence has not entirely disappeared, and that youth should not take them for granted.

A good, solid, evocative crime-movie, Touchez pas au grisbi is a fitting introduction both to Gabin’s later work and to French films of the genre, as well as being simply an entertaining yarn.