Circle of Danger (1951)

Directed by Jacques Tourneur; produced by Joan Harrison and David E Rose

After several years earning a tidy sum in salvage, former U.S. Navy sailor Clay Douglas (Ray Milland) travels to Britain. His goal is to learn about the death of his brother, Hank, who, in 1940, had joined the British Army and been the only casualty in an otherwise successful and unspectacular commando raid. As he interviews those who knew his sibling, it becomes clear to Douglas that Hank’s death was not as straightforward as many would like him to believe.

There is a mystery in Circle of Danger, but it eventually becomes clear that it is not an exciting one. The interlude of five years or so between the end of the Second World War and the start of Douglas’s quest almost sets the tone for the film: slow, leisurely, and without urgency. The audience soon learns that, despite the title, there is no danger to the protagonist, or to anyone else, except for an unconvincing dab in the finale. The movie is, in fact, boring.

The puzzling aspect about Circle of Danger is why it is boring. The director has done other, good work; Tourneur famously crafted the atmospheric Cat People, and Out of the Past is reckoned by many to be one of the best films noir. None of Tourneur’s talent is particularly evident in Circle of Danger.

Writer Philip MacDonald wrote The Body Snatcher, and adapted the novel Rebecca for the screen: two different movies, both successful. Yet there is no suspense here; Douglas’s peregrinations about Great Britain are more along the lines of a travelogue than a drama. The story itself is a good one, or might have been, if handled better, but the screenplay is bland. The running joke of Douglas being late for his dates with new-found love-interest, Elspeth (Patricia Roc), is tedious, as is her pointless hay fever.

I had the feeling that this was made largely for an American market, with Douglas travelling to Wales, with its stereotypical coal mine, and to Scotland with its lochs and white heather. Then, in London, he visits the Thames and Covent Garden Market, and tries to figure out English money. Most Britons in the film are effusive in their praise of the U.S. and Americans. Though filmed on location, and by a British company, the movie is like one made by a Hollywood crew on a field-trip.

The acting is certainly good. Milland is as likeable a leading man as a movie could want, and is in fine form in thrillers such as The Ministry of Fear, and The Big Clock. Here, he appears a little too snide, perhaps too confident. He is ably supported by Hugh Sinclair as a vaguely misleading Scottish laird, and Marius Goring as an impresario no one would guess used to be a commando. Particularly interesting is Naunton Wayne, cast as a dark and repulsive version of his popular Caldicott character from other films. But ‘good’ and ‘interesting’ don’t make the characters very watchable.

It seems almost as if the movie’s elements, represented by its leading lights, got in each other’s way. The writing couldn’t overcome the story, the story was left limp by the direction, the acting didn’t propel the story… In the end, Circle of Danger has become a plodding tour of Britain, glimpsing the natives at their daily jobs, and leading to a conclusion that is itself mildly implausible.

The Night My Number Came Up (1955)

Directed by Leslie Norman; produced by Michael Balcon

When a Royal Air Force passenger aircraft disappears over Japan on a routine flight, a search is mounted, but with no success and decreasing hope. A naval commander (Michael Hordern) intercedes with a frantic plea - literally inexplicble - to look in a region the aeroplane was unlikely to have flown over. As the search continues, we learn the events leading the possible crash, and the people involved.

The Night My Number Came Up doesn’t really have a right to be an entertaining movie. What has happened to the aeroplane is not really much of a secret; it takes place in the present (1955) and therefore in peace-time, so there is no chance of it having been shot down; there is no international chicanery or sabotage. It’s not, therefore, a mystery. Most of the story is told in flashback, so there is a kind of pre-destination to the whole affair. Yet it still manages to be exciting and interesting.

The secret is, I think, in the acting and the script, the latter of which manages to make details significant, while the former keeps the viewer involved. The screenplay, by R C Sherriff (from a story by Victor Goddard), manages cleverly to create a number of crises without making them seem repetitious or tedious, or making the viewer believe that he’s been fooled. It also builds suspense in the collection of various events that combine to persuade various passengers of the aeroplane that danger is increasing.

This sense of danger is communicated to the audience through the fine acting of the cast. Hordern, despite his character’s significance, plays a relatively small part, the larger being given to Michael Redgrave as a senior air force officer, Alexander Knox as a middle-level colonial official, and Denholm Elliott as a young officer suffering from latent battle fatigue.

Mention must also be made of Sheila Sim, whose character is somewhat in ignorance of events, and Nigel Stock as a pilot. Each brings his or her own reaction to what is happening, or what might happen, and this leads both to conflict and interest. As well, none, except perhaps the brash businessman Bennett (George Rose), is a stereotype, most giving evidence of his humanity and limits.

This was the director’s second feature film after his debut (as co-director) sixteen years before, and he does a good job of it. Norman takes what might very well could have been a stage-play (perhaps Sherriff’s influence) and breaks up the claustrophobic scenes in the aeroplane with interludes on the ground. These serve as rests between the stretches of tension. Norman later directed Dunkirk (1958), which remains the best film about that battle.

For a movie that involves a missing air force aeroplane but isn’t a war film, that makes the fate of that aeroplane uncertain but isn’t a mystery, that is set largely in one location but isn’t stagey, The Night My Number Came Up is remarkably and, perhaps surprisingly, successful.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)

Directed by Gordon Douglas; produced by William Cagney

With the help of a guard, Ralph Cotter escapes from the prison farm to which he had been sent. The only problem is his fellow prisoner (Neville Brand), who is wounded. Cotter kills him and escapes alone. Once outside, he quickly commits a series of crimes, from armed robbery to assault to blackmail, all the time building to bigger and more dangerous felonies. What will stop him and who will be hurt in the process?

While an entertaining gangster film, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye has some flaws, and for unusual reasons. Watching the movie, I had the feeling that it was almost a throwback to Cagney’s earlier films, like The Public Enemy. There was something too routine about Cotter’s successes. They are not, in fact, portrayed to be as simple as this criticism implies, but they come across as such.

As well, this was surely a rôle meant for a younger actor. Cagney was fifty years old at the time, and a prison record states his character’s age as 37. Another character refers to Cotter as a young man. And the ease with which he romances not one but two women, both in their twenties, is rather unrealistic, despite the appeal that Cagney could exude on-screen.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is - perhaps unfairly - sometimes compared to White Heat, the star’s very memorable 1949 movie. Though I always prefer to review a film on its own merits, a comparison - or, rather, a contrast - of the two is, I think, appropriate. Though made a year earlier, White Heat portrays Cagney’s character, Cody Jarrett, as an aging gangster. His hold over his girl (Virginia Mayo) is tenuous, and the very first scene is directed in a way to emphasise the older man that Cagney has become. This quality is worked to advantage in the immature dependence of Jarrett upon his mother, and the worsening of his personality through time.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, on the other hand, has the actor, now a year older, playing a younger man, with less success. The choice of rôle for Cagney was odd, considering his desire at the time not to be further typecast in cinema. The fact that his production company had debts to pay off may have influenced his decision.

Other elements of the movie are decent, including the acting. Ward Bond has a good role; often he portrays a slightly comic authority figure. Here, he is a dangerously corrupt cop who becomes malleable under extortion. Luther Adler has probably the best part, as an attorney who is more than a little shady. Cagney’s brother, William, the producer, plays Cotter’s brother in the last scene, and, as mentioned, Neville Brand has uncredited work, early in his career.

The direction is workmanlike, but close, even claustrophobic, in some instances. This, too, gives the feeling of an earlier motion picture, from the time when every scene was shot on a sound stage. The ending comes a little out of nowhere and, though not unsatisfactory, could have had some foreshadowing.

Over all, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is an enjoyable crime-flick, but seems almost dated and ordinary, like an average script turned into a movie because nothing else was available.