A Christmas Carol (a.k.a. Scrooge)

Directed and produced by Brian Desmond-Hurst

At this time of year, I think there is no better movie to review than one of my favourites, A Christmas Carol (originally entitled Scrooge), from 1951. As may be discerned, this is not going to be a negative review, but I will provide ample evidence, I believe, to show why I find such favour with this film.

It follows the very familiar story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a man so miserly and miserable (the two words once had similar definitions) that he has no liking at all for his fellow man, merely contempt. To turn his life onto the proper path once more, he is visited on Christmas Eve by four spirits, beginning with that of his late business partner. Through a series of flashbacks, which Scrooge and his guides - the various spirits - also observe, the viewer sees the gradual transformation of Scrooge from hopeful young man to angry misanthrope.

With such a well-loved classic as A Christmas Carol, there will certainly be no faulting the story in this movie. Like Jane Austen novels, like Alice in Wonderland, Dickens’s Yuletide tale has proven itself with more than a century of popularity. If any movie adaptation of it fails, then it surely is not the fault of the story.

But this fact does not automatically guarantee a successful adaptation, either. There have been several films made from the book, and their quality has varied. I think first and foremost, the 1951 version owes its supremacy to the lead actor, Alastair Sim. A career in performing begun in the 1930s gave him great experience as both a leading man and a character actor. His portrayal of Scrooge walks a fine line between caricature and realism: he invites us to ridicule the old man for his disdainful ways - there is a large dollop of comedy, sometimes subtle - in this irritable old man, but he is nonetheless imbued with a humanity that we recognise.

It was after the tenth or twelfth viewing of this film (yes, I’ve seen it that often) that I realised Scrooge, as depicted here, is paranoid. Witness the start with which he greets a knock on his office door, and the fright a debtor gives him on the front steps of the Exchange. One would think he was expecting to be ambushed. As well, the number of bolts on his door at home suggests a man with enemies. It is made clear that Scrooge has no earthly foes, but there is something in the back of his mind that worries him about his life - and with good reason, as it turns out.

Sim’s Scrooge starts as a crabbed old man, hunched over, pulled into himself, keeping the world physically at bay. When he is redeemed, he comes alive again, and is a spry, lanky fellow, dancing polkas, standing on his head and moving with the agility of an adolescent. The giddiness with which he embraces life at the end is contagious, and I suspect that few viewers could refrain from grinning along with Scrooge at his newfound happiness.

Other actors compliment Sim marvellously, from Kathleen Harrison’s charlady, with a voice like a door-hinge, to the delicacy of Carol Marsh as Scrooge’s sister. There doesn’t seem to be a mis-step in the casting. Jack Warner plays Mr Jorking, the symbol of the insidious seduction of wealth, and a character who was not, so far as I can recall, in the book. I rarely approve of screenwriters tampering with successful source material, but Warner’s performance and the lines he is given are perfect fits for the story. George Cole plays the young Scrooge. He would go on to a forty-year career in movies and tv, thanks to Sim. The elder actor and his wife practically adopted Cole and his wife; Sim and his protègé worked together in numerous films.

Much of the praise must go, as well, to the director of the movie. It’s an open question as to how much Scrooge’s cheery transformation owes to the director as opposed to the actor. The fact that it’s hard to tell is a compliment to both. The atmosphere contributes much to the film’s success. The eerieness of Christmas Eve, with tricks of light and dark, its cold, when everyone must be bundled up, is contrasted with the appeal of the following morning, when windows are open and the air is fresh. The joviality of the Spirit of Christmas Present (my favourite visitor) evokes the fun that the miser is missing, as much as the speechless doom of the Spirit of the Future shows what he will suffer. At 86 minutes, A Christmas Carol moves along at a fair clip; there is nothing extraneous to the plot, and the story doesn’t bog down at all.

Lastly, a word must be written about the music. Richard Addinsell combines old carols and folk tunes (the lovely “Barbara Allen” is a recurring theme indicating a lost - and regained - happiness in Scrooge’s life) with new compositions. It is an instance of a movie’s music being noticeable and yet contributing to the story, and not overpowering it. This is not always the case with films.

I watch A Christmas Carol each year, and frequently discover something new about it. A professional critic once wrote that it is too good a film to watch only at the Yuletide, but it has become a part of many movie-lovers’ holiday traditions, and it has long been one of mine.

Ride the Pink Horse (1947)

Directed by Robert Montgomery; produced by Joan Harrison

Despite the title, this is neither a children’s movie, nor the story of a weekend’s alcoholic binge. It is semi-film noir about a man who comes to a town on the U.S.-Mexico border, looking to even the score with a crooked businessman who was responsible for a friend’s death.

First of all, I must state that Robert Montgomery as a tough guy always stretches credibility for me. I think I’ve seen him in three or four films, and in all but one, he was a tough guy. There is something about him that does not convince me. This time, however, his acting ability - with which I have no problem, despite not being persuaded by periodic performances - and the subtlety of his direction win the day.

The story (script by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer) is simple. There is blackmail, an attempt to thwart it by physical force, a femme fatale and a final showdown. The characters are intriguing, however. Montgomery’s is not the most interesting, despite his character’s name (‘Lucky’ Gagin) being displayed in the opening credits larger than the title, as if he is a famous character recurring in fiction (and his nickname is not, so far as I can recall, ever mentioned). In his quest simply to find a hotel room in a town crowded for ‘the fiesta’, Montgomery meets a disreputable-looking carousel-owner (Thomas Gomez). The new friend - an habitué of a bar - becomes very interested when the newcomer flashes his cash, but, despite expectations, the man proves a stalwart ally. A girl (Wanda Hendrix), who is instantly attracted to Montgomery, has much to say on the relationship of the races, all without knowing she’s saying it.

The action is mostly in the tension, the tension between Montgomery and others: the shady businessman (well-played by Fred Clark), Pila (Hendrix), the businessman’s sometime girlfriend (Andrea King) and the federal agent on the case (Art Smith). The climax occurs while one of the characters is delusional from an infected knife-wound; unlike many pictures, old and new, a stab in the back here doesn’t heal quickly and causes possibly deadly complications.

That Montgomery fits this role, despite my misgivings about some of its aspects, may be seen by imagining some more successful film tough guys in the part; Bogart or Cagney, for instance. They probably could not have given just the right nuance of vulnerability that was needed in the last twenty minutes. The ending is not what I expected it to be - I wasn’t really sure how Ride the Pink Horse would end, which I like in a movie - but is the logical conclusion of what had gone before.

Ride the Pink Horse turns out to be a film that is good while one views it, but becomes better with more thought and consideration. It is not a classic, nor is it one that I will want to see again soon, but I am glad I saw it, and will recommend it to others.

The Golden Salamander (1950)

Directed by Ronald Neame; produced by Alexander Galperson

This adventure/crime film starts promisingly, with a man, later identified as a British archaeologist, driving through a torrential downpour in Tunisia, his road eventually blocked by a landslide and an abandoned truck. Investigating, he finds the truck’s cargo of boxes burst open, and firearms spilling out. He wisely avoids the two men who show up to salvage the wreck and walks to his destination, a small coastal city. There, he takes a room at an inn, run by a fetching young French girl, and frequented by an assortment of individuals, some clearly sinister, others merely secretive. The archaeologist’s purpose - the cataloguing for the British Museum of a collection of artifacts stranded in Tunisia by the recently ended war - is soon sidetracked by more immediate, and possibly deadly, concerns.

I was encouraged by the opening. After all, a flood-producing rainstorm in northern Africa is a rarity in movies, which seem to think a desert is always dry. The finding of the pistols immediately signalled gun-running, and the stalwart British hero was obviously going to become involved. Unfortunately, The Golden Salamander very soon betrayed its invigorating beginning.

I think the main problem here was the writing. The story comes from a novel by Victor Canning, who co-wrote the screenplay. Canning was an immensely prolific and popular author in the middle decades of the twentieth century; I gather he was a more cerebral Edgar Wallace. Whether his style was better suited to his time, this story was one of his lesser efforts, or it did not translate well to the screen, The Golden Salamander does not move along well. I enjoy a dialogue-heavy film as much as I do an action-filled flick, but the lines here are not particularly bright, incisive, smart or interesting.

The characters too are rather bland. I found little chemistry between the two principal actors, Trevor Howard and Anouk (later called Anouk Aimée but, at eighteen, already a rising star of French cinema). Both are good actors, but Howard I did not find a persuasive romantic lead. Wilfred Hyde-White, as a gentle toper, Herbert Lom as the obviously sinister villain, and Miles Malleson as the local police chief, are satisfactory. But again, the fact that none involved me in the film was probably the fault of the script.

The direction was a bit pedestrian. This is rather more unexpected, as Neame was the man behind the camera in The Prime of Miss Jean Brody and Tunes of Glory. While he later directed action films such as The Poseidon Adventure, The Golden Salamander was only his second directorial work, and his first action movie, though the action is not very thrilling. The whole movie gives the impression of someone new to helming a project. For instance, a native wedding procession is featured, but it has no point to the plot, it doesn’t enrich the characters and their dialogue simply pauses while they look at the parade go by. It’s as if the crew was reminded that they were filming scenes on location, so they’d better make the most of it, whether it fit or not.

So, while the elements were all present for an exciting crime-fighting yarn, they were not handled with any real skill. A more experienced, or confident, hand may have been needed. Perhaps a bit more of the Edgar Wallace touch.

Dunkirk (2017)

Directed by Christopher Nolan; produced by Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas

The battle and evacuation of most of the British Expeditionary Force and many of its French allies from Dunkirk in 1940 was one of the most significant events in the Second World War. There have been several films about it, and this is the latest, written and directed by Christopher Nolan.

Though the movie is good, I must reluctantly admit to disappointment. It just didn’t have the expansiveness that such an epic of history demands. One of the reasons for this is, I think, Nolan’s decision to view the battle from ‘ground level’, as it were. The protagonists are ‘low-level’ performers on the stage of history: a Spitfire pilot (Tom Hardy), a civilian ‘weekend sailor’ (Mark Rylance) and a soldier (Fionn Whitehead), representing the three elements - air, sea and land - of the battle. I have often read that an individual’s perception of a battle may be quite different from how it is viewed at large - a soldier who survived the most ferocious fighting of his life learns that he was in no more than a skirmish, or finds himself with nothing to do during a titanic struggle - and in Dunkirk, the three men’s experiences don’t translate into anything big or gripping.

Another problem is the storyline that follows Whitehead’s character. While Rylance and Hardy are heading into battle to do their bit, Whitehead is trying to flee. He and his comrades spend a great deal of time waiting, strolling along the beach and watching. This is no reflection on his or other soldiers’ character; there was little for individuals to do unless they were posted to defend the city’s perimeter. At one point, Whitehead and others crowd into the hold of a grounded trawler, and wait for the tide to float the boat so they can escape. Awaiting the tide becomes the maritime equivalent of watching paint dry. Whitehead does experience action: he is thrice involved in sinking ships. Though this may have occurred in real life - indeed, I have read first-hand accounts of officers and men rescued from one stricken vessel, only to have their second ship sunk under them - the repetition in a movie grows more tedious, rather than exciting.

At 106 minutes, Dunkirk is just the right length for its story, but I can’t help thinking that it deserved to be longer, with another, higher level involved. A series of parallel stories, showing the planning and execution of the operation by generals and admirals, would have created a greater sense of the scope of the true event. Here, there is little indication that the city and beaches were defended, when in fact, large numbers of British and French troops fought constantly to keep the Germans at bay. Dunkirk itself was a ruined shambles by the end of the evacuation, but in this movie, buildings are intact, windows still neatly glazed. In fact, the only attacks made by the Germans on the Allied forces are sporadic assaults by air and under sea. In real life, the artillery bombardment was continual. There is, surprisingly, relatively little action in this film about an event in which something was always going on.

The performances are excellent, mostly given by unknowns, though Hardy and Rylance are prominent, and James D’Arcy and Kenneth Branagh play, respectively, an army colonel and a Royal Navy commander - the highest ranks seen except for a brief appearance by an admiral. Michael Caine (who played a prominent part in 1969’s The Battle of Britain) gives voice to an unseen pilot. 

There is little, really, to criticize regarding what was provided. Dunkirk suffers principally from what is not provided. In the end, though a fine tribute to the men, service and civilian, who rescued an army and made ultimate victory in World War Two possible, Dunkirk is like a painting: a representation of scenes and events that convey an impression, rather than tell a true-to-life story.

The Man Who Planted Trees (1987)

Directed and produced by Frédéric Back

I have something a bit different this time. The Man Who Planted Trees is an animated Canadian film based a French book written by Jean Giono (with, in this case, an English translation by Jean Roberts). It is a mere thirty minutes long, a fable meant for adults, undoubtedly, but fit for any age.

It tells the story of a young man who starts a walking tour through Provence. Eventually, he finds himself in a desolate district, where little grows and no one lives. A few ruined villages are the sole testimony to the harsh and crabbed existence people lived there, before eventually giving up even that and leaving. The man, narrating the story, meets a shepherd named Elzéard Bouffier. Living alone, Bouffier wanders the valleys planting acorns. He is patiently re-foresting the land, with oaks on the plateau and birches in the valleys. In three years, he has planted 100,000 seeds, of which he expects a tenth to grow and survive. What follows is a remarkable tale of the power of a single individual to change his world.

This little movie is nearly flawless; I say ‘nearly’ only because nothing is perfect, but I can’t actually find anything wrong with The Man Who Planted Trees.

One of the tale’s strengths is its realism. Almost everyone who read the book or saw the film initially thought it was based on true events, and that Bouffier was real. This is reinforced by the style of the writing. The lines spoken (by Christopher Plummer) sound like merely those of a man telling what has happened to him. From first to last, the lines are simple and ordinary; like a complex drawing that uses nothing but unadorned strokes. The story is set not in a fantasy land, but in France, beginning in 1913. Events occur that lend realism. There is mention of a government plan to cut down trees Bouffier planted, to provide fuel during World War Two, but the scheme is not financially feasible, and is shut down. This digression doesn’t add to the narrative, but to its authenticity.

A simple, exquisite story is matched by superb animation. It has often been compared to Impressionism. The images reminded me of water-colours, but I think, upon close inspection, they resemble more those made by crayons. Pictures blend one into another, as the story flows from one scene to the next. The colours are finely judged, and create the atmosphere as much as do the words. More than once, an image is used as a comparison or a contrast; for instance, the narrator speaks of how, while he was at war, young birch trees were growing, and we see the trees shoot up like explosions. Instead of death, these bursts bring life.

The Man Who Planted Trees is a fable about making a difference. It is not preachy or demanding; it is as patient as Elzéard Bouffier, as gentle as the land he creates. It is all the more powerful because it is realistic. There is no climax, for the whole story is, in a manner, anti-climactic. If there is excitement, it is in the thrill of seeing a world bettered by human endeavour.

This film is movie-making, and story-telling, at its best.

Shield for Murder (1954)

Directed by Howard W. Koch and Edmond O'Brien; produced by Aubrey Schenck

By the 1950s, it seemed that police detectives in American movies had changed from the manner in which they were depicted in the 1930s and ‘40s. In the earlier era, they often dressed in the same well-pressed suits as the higher class villains they pursued, and if they mentioned their low salaries, it was usually with humorous resignation. By 1954, the cops were rumpled, tired, fed up and one night-shift away from becoming criminals themselves.

Shield for Murder is a prime example of this trend. The view of a policeman’s lot is a bleak one, with constant references made to dirt, filth, garbage, etc. (At one point, a police captain, ordering his subordinates to arrest someone, tells them, “All right, go out and rub your faces in the mud. Bring him in.”) This fits with the plot, which details the exploits of a cop gone bad (Edmond O’Brien) in his attempt to obtain what he thinks he should have out of life. The first scene shows him murdering a bookie for the $25,000 he is carrying, and, remarkably, this is not as bad as it gets for him. With his suspicious colleagues on his trail and a local mobster wanting his money, killing someone turns out to be the easy part for our protagonist.

Shield for Murder is a low-budget film. This is seen, literally, in the shadow of a boom-microphone visible within the first minutes. The scene wasn’t re-shot, probably due to financial constraints. Later, a show-home serves as the setting for a scene, and the company that built it is named as ‘Kling’. In the credits, Kling is listed as a genuine company, having provided the show-home - probably for free in consideration of being mentioned in the dialogue. Also, some generic shots of police cars are used more than once. 

Small budgets do not kill movies (in some instances, they can be the saving grace), and when they are a disadvantage, they can be made up in other ways. But the dialogue here is only adequate, and the direction, shared by star O’Brien, is routine, except in some action scenes; the shoot-out at the swimming pool is especially exciting. However, the principal supporting players (John Agar, Marla English) are not impressive. Their acting is stiff, especially compared with O’Brien’s. Also to be seen in minor roles are a young Claude Akins, Carolyn Jones (“The Addams Family”), Richard Deacon (The Dick Van Dyke Show”) and William Schallert. The first two in particular are examples of how character actors can brighten a lacklustre film.

And Shield for Murder, unfortunately, does not shine. O’Brien does well. He is not necessarily under-rated as an actor, but is, I think, under-appreciated. He gives solid performances in films. He had a brief period as a leading man but by 1954 was already moving into supporting roles, where his talents were better used. But B-movies such as Shield for Murder allowed less prominent actors to come to the forefront, just as independent features do today. Here, O’Brien gives three dimensions to what another performer would portray as cardboard. His crooked cop is not evil, but he is bad. When he finds a witness to his initial crime, he doesn’t try to hurt him, but attempts to bribe him. His hatred is for the low-level criminals with whom he must deal every day. And there is a rage in his character that is frightening to see.

Despite this, the uneven film is rather run-of-the-mill; the viewer knows how it will end. The story provides no surprises, the script not enough life. Certainly, O’Brien is worth seeing, but, despite a few other attractions, he is not enough to hold up a Shield for Murder.

A Canterbury Tale (1944)

Directed and produced by Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger

There are very few movies that I would call ‘unique’. Certainly, a movie need not be unique to be enjoyable or even of excellent quality. And, just as certainly, unique can be applied to something bad - in which case, we are glad it is unique. A Canterbury Tale is, however, most definitely good.

The story takes place in the present day (present day when the film was produced (1944)), and concerns three people - an American soldier (John Sweet), a British soldier (Dennis Price) and a girl (Sheila Sim) from the Land Army (agricultural labour volunteers during World War Two) - who meet while passing through the village of Chillingbourne, Kent. Almost immediately, Sim is assaulted in a bizarre manner - a stranger rushes by and pours glue on her head. The trio learn that ten other women have been similarly victimised, leaving them unhurt but bewildered. Amateur investigations lead to the local magistrate (Eric Portman).

From the plot’s synopsis, one might conclude that A Canterbury Tale is a light-hearted mystery. But the mystery is a bit of a red herring; it is an introduction to what is, in fact, a propaganda film. But there are no flags waving or trumpets blaring. This is a tribute to the greatness of England - not its military, nor its politics - but to what truly make a country great: its people, its buildings, even its agriculture and handicrafts.

There is, running through the story, a theme about connections and continuity, among time and places and people. This is demonstrated, at first, in an obvious manner, comparing fourteenth century pilgrims on their way to Canterbury to travellers destined for the same city six hundred years later. But associations show up throughout, as when Sweet compares Canterbury Cathedral to the much more humble church in Oregon that his great-grandfather built, or when Price, whose dream of being a church organist was diverted into the reality of playing in a cinema, meets the cathedral’s organist, who started out playing in a circus. Dates crop up all the time, whether mentioned by a stationmaster about how old his ‘municipal borough’ is, or seen carved on a door. A wheelwright talks about how his father and his father had done such work.

The conclusion I drew was that the makers of A Canterbury Tale saw a nation’s strength in the ordinary things that were constant, in some form, through eons, and that this strength could be found between nations and peoples, as well.

And who were the film-makers? Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger (“The Archers”) worked so well together that the credits show the film as ‘written, produced and directed by’ both of them. They created some of the best British films of the 1940s and ’50s, and this is one of their gems. The writing brings forth characters that are very different yet all sympathetic in their own ways. Sweet, an easy-going son of pioneers; Price, whose cynical face often put him in apathetic characters, and Sim, a happy girl hiding a secret heart-ache, are all human, their personalities quite different yet, believably, friends to each other. Portman’s local magistrate is equally well-written and played, a man who, while initially almost sinister, comes across as someone with a local patriotism that may seem obsessive, but whose deep love of his land keeps its story alive.

The story-telling is gentle. There is a scene in which two characters compare methods of cutting and seasoning wood (“one year for every inch of thickness”); it’s about seven or eight minutes long and doesn’t add anything to the plot, but adds immensely to the people and atmosphere of the film. Another scene shows a mock war of little boys at play (back in the days when children could play ‘guns’ without either a policeman or a psychiatrist being summoned); this eventually progresses the plot, but the same could have been done using no more than a minute of the film.

The photography is beautiful; warmth, colour, scents, are all conveyed in black-and-white photography. Images of clouds (presaging a warm day), landscapes and distant vistas, show an England clearly dear to the film-makers’ hearts. The direction demonstrates that the nation is not just in fields and cottages: the shops and businesses of heavily bombed Canterbury carry on, and a shot of the cathedral down a narrow lane includes a sign for Boots the Chemists, as English an institution as tea.

A Canterbury Tale is a war-movie without battles, a romance with kissing, a propaganda film without boasting, a psychological drama without angst, a comedy without belly-laughs. Crafted by a native-born Englishman and an immigrant who became a British citizen, A Canterbury Tale is an understated but nonetheless immense tribute to a loved country, and to the people and ways of life that made it.

(You may notice that the poster includes Kim Hunter in the cast. She - and narration by Raymond Massey - were added for the post-war American edition of the film. I would advise against watching that version. Twenty minutes were cut out of the original, in order to make the movie run ‘faster’, while ‘bookends’, with Hunter as Sweet’s girlfriend, were added. The British version as reviewed above is the ‘directors’ cut’.)

Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)

Directed by Lewis Gilbert; produced by Herbert Mason

Cast a Dark Shadow has an excellent beginning and doesn’t really miss a step thereafter. The first shot shows a woman in her late middle age screaming; it turns out that she is on a ride in a fun-house’s ‘hall of horrors’. The camera then shows the much younger man sitting next to her, staring unblinkingly at her. We know immediately that the monster of whom she should be terrified is right beside her.

Dirk Bogarde gives a wonderfully layered performance as Edward, a young fellow on the make. His plan to get ahead is to kill his susceptible and wealthy older wife, Molly (Mona Washbourne), in order to inherit her wealth. But there is no perfect crime in fiction, any more than in real life, and Mona has accidentally foiled Edward’s scheme. Hoping to have her money come to him simply by virtue of their marriage, Edward murders Molly when she tells him she intends to write a will. A misunderstanding makes him think she will leave everything to her sister, when she wants to leave everything to him. Her death at his hands keeps her from writing the will he would have wanted.

So Edward sets his sights on the sister, who lives in Jamaica. To get there, he needs money. And that means another unwitting wife…

While a number of elements in Cast a Dark Shadow are interesting, the most intriguing are the character of Edward, and Bogarde’s performance. This is not a cardboard villain. The first time we see him, we note his obvious wickedness. But then we see a brief reaction after the murder. He is not as cold as he first appears. And was that initial glare at Molly in the fun-house one of contempt or pity? At one point, Edward states that Molly was the only one who understood him, and there is no reason for the viewer to doubt this belief. In fact, it may be that it was only with Molly that Edward had ever been or would be happy. Yet, even with this possible realisation, he would not be turned from his evil goal.

The character of Freda (Margaret Lockwood) is almost as well written and played. She is as sharp as Molly was blind to what people can be. She thinks she knows Edward’s type and, as she shares some of his characteristics, is not put off by him. How well they are matched, and how well their respective expectations are met, or not met, may be gauged when one confesses feelings for the other, to which the latter’s response is, “Well, we didn’t see that coming, did we?” in a combination of surprise and amusement.

While the acting and writing take pride of place in Cast a Dark Shadow, the direction is good, as well. The first scene in the fun-house, already mentioned, is very suggestive. The direction is, in fact, quite leading, giving signs of what the director wants us to think or feel, rather than showing it more overtly. Molly’s presence is almost palpably felt by Edward; he not only apostrophises her throughout the movie, as if she were still alive, indeed, watching his progress, but often sets her now empty chair rocking, as if she were in it. There is also a scene in which Edward and Freda pick flowers, his assurance that it is safe to do so in conflict with a sign posted that clearly reads ‘Danger’. This is not so obvious a shot as it may seem; it is not a matter of Freda being oblivious to the hazards Edward represents, but rather of how she can live with them when the signs that indicate otherwise are all around her.

Cast a Dark Shadow has a few weak points, but not enough to cancel the appeal of this thriller, a good example of British film noir.