Venetian Bird (1952)

Directed by Ralph Thomas; produced by Betty E Box

Private detective Edward Mercer (Richard Todd) travels to Venice to find Renzo Uccello, who had saved an RAF officer’s life in the Second World War. To his surprise, he finds Uccello elusive, people reluctant to speak of him and the police even more interested in finding him than Mercer is himself. Soon, the investigator is caught up in bribery and political assassinations, and becomes the subject of a hunt more dangerous than that for Uccello.

Victor Canning, who wrote both the novel from which Venetian Bird is adapted, and the adaptation itself, was a prolific author of thrillers in the 1930s, ‘40s and later. Venetian Bird seems fairly typical of his work. Like The Golden Salamander - a movie derived from another of his books and reviewed on this blog in December of 2017 - it involves an Englishman who is inadvertently caught up in intrigue and romance in foreign parts. Venetian Bird is the better movie but, though an adequate adventure film, not really memorable. It gives the feeling of coming from an author who put out more or less similar work once a year as a job, which is what Canning was.

Todd is usually an engaging hero, boyish, active, as ready with his brains as with his fists. He does well here in a rôle that doesn’t really ask him to stretch his talent. His love-interest, Eva Bartok, is suitably mysterious, but not as good an actor as her male counterpart. The best parts are filled by George Coulouris, as a harassed police chief, and John Gregson as a street photographer/police agent. The film comes more alive during their scenes.

The direction is good. Thomas is a work-a-day director, without much flair or spectacular style, but he knows what to do with the location shooting, and incorporates with competence scenes obviously shot in Venice with those just as obviously shot on a sound-stage. (Much was probably filmed in England, as may be guessed by the British supporting cast, including Sidney James as an Italian undertaker.) A chase over tiled roofs is well-handled.

The story is serviceable, but the script gives the impression of not having had enough thought put into it - or, rather, not enough thought given to taking ideas far enough. Mercer talks about how he let a suspicious character escape, implying that he was losing his skills. Nothing is made of this observation, however. As well, we are told that he and a female associate (Margot Grahame) participated in an ‘assassination’ during the war. Viewers may assume that it had to do with the conflict - perhaps a collaborator was targeted - but that is not explained. The villain is rather easily traced to an apartment merely because another villain owns the building.

Definitely a B-movie, Venetian Bird entertains well enough for an evening, but it could have been more, and possibly relied too much on the writer’s fame, rather than any skill he may have had.