Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

LeonLouisRicci Late Film-Noir from Britain Starring a Stellar Cast (Dirk Bogarde, Margaret Lockwood, and Kay Walsh) and Directed by the More Than Competent Lewis Gilbert, with the Cinematography by the Always Interesting and Hammer Regular John Asher.While Our Friends Across the Pond Struggled Somewhat in Delivering Quintessential Film-Noir, it Wasn't for Lack of Trying. It Just Seems that the Noir Genre, was Creatively More at Home in Hollywood Portraying the Inner Cities of the USA.Anyway, This is a Wholly Enjoyable, Well Acted, and Engaging Story of a Beautiful, Boyish, Homicidal, Homosexual, Madman Played by the Charming Bogarde. His Looks and Demeanor Help the Odd Fellow Attract the Aging Lonely Hearts Type, Although Beneath It All He is Clearly Looney Tunes.He Tries Hard to Manage His New Prey (Lockwood), After He's Done Away With His First Wife and Found That Her Will has Left Him Out Without a Pound. But She is Having None of It and This is Where the Film Intrigues and Explodes Into Confrontations and a Battle of Wits.Some Do Not Like the Contrived Ending, but Certainly Getting There is All the Fun. After a Stunning Opening at an Amusement Park that is Visually Quite Startling and Different, the Movie Retreats to the Drawing Room Most of the Time. A Bit Stagy but the Dialog and the Things Going On and About the Stuffy Mansion are Noirish and it's All Done with a Sarcastic Sting.

gs20 The reason I gave this a 1 is simply that I will not be ripped off even if 99% of an offering is fabulous. One reviewer(MagicStarfire) even goofily indicated a plot hole in the reason Teddy murders Mony claiming it resulted after the inebriated explanation by Mony concerning the lawyers first visit. All that means is the reviewer didn't understand or listen to the actual conversation between the two in so far as Mony clearly was UNclear and made it sound as if she was leaving her money to her family(sister in this case) NOT Teddy. Teddy understandably misunderstood her ramblings. Some fans need to pay attention more attentively. In any event the real "Grand Canyon" of all plot holes is the fact that after he is exposed and escapes the house he jumps into his car and takes off only to find the road blocked by the lawyers car pointing toward the house and the sister's car(on which he had just cut the hydraulic brakes which will not fail immediately folks, by the way, explaining why she was able to stop on the flat straight roadway just 100 feet from the house) pointing away from the house. So what does he do? Does he get into the lawyers car and backup and turn that car and continue to escape.......no.....he jumps into the car he just tampered with and drives down a steep hill on which he will surely pump out the rest of his brake fluid and crash.........ridiculous for a number of reasons. He is clearly an expert mechanic. He was no longer in a panic if he ever actually was. He was a standard sociopath and clearly not suicidal. He was clearly familiar with those three vehicles and knew which was which and whose was whose. We were ripped off by this contrived ending and I object to it most strenuously. It was almost as bad as ordering a hot fudge sundae with everything and finding out it was made with low fat yogurt. If Teddy were hanged or got away in the lawyers car or joined the navy or murdered everyone in the house, it would have been a perfect movie.

MagicStarfire This oddball black'n'white movie from 1955, early on inserts a plot-hole so large it haunted me throughout the entire film.Dirk Borgarde plays a charming but evil young man with the unbelievable name of Teddy Bare. Yes, that's right - this character's name is Edward Bare, and he is called Teddy throughout most of the film.When we first meet him, he is newly wed to a woman who is supposed to be old enough to be his mother - but actually she looked old enough to be his grandmother.Of course he has married this older woman, named Mony, for one reason and one reason only - her money. Mony, money - hmmm - another odd character name. So, we in the audience are expecting him to off her at any time.Shortly after her marriage to Teddy, Mony made out a will leaving her new husband the large mansion they live in, along with a beach shack, but with all the money going to her sister, Dora. Teddy knows nothing about this will.Now Mony has had second thoughts and decided she wants to make a new will, leaving everything to her dear Teddy Bare. This she discussed with her lawyer, Philip Mortimer, I think was the character's name. He advises against it, but she has the bit in her teeth and she has decided she will sign the new will into effect first thing tomorrow morning.She then tells Teddy about her plan to leave everything to him, saying she hasn't even seen her sister Dora in 20 years. He tells her that isn't necessary, whoever the surviving spouse is will get it anyway and that he doesn't want her to do this. I assumed it was to throw her off the scent of the fact he's after her money--because there was certainly no other good reason for him to tell her this. She, however, has decided she will definitely sign the will tomorrow morning.Now what happens next is what threw a monkey wrench into the entire thing--creating the Grand Canyon of plot holes.Teddy then arranges for Mony's death that very night, and is successful. Now this stopped me right in my tracks - it made no logical sense of any kind.She was signing a new will the next morning that would guarantee that he would get everything. Having a will makes things much simpler and easier than when an estate has to go through probate which can take up to a year or longer. This was in Britain, so perhaps their laws are somewhat different, but it still made no sense for him to off her just before she was to sign this wonderful document that was completely in his favor and that cut out the sister entirely.Well, the story moves on. Teddy discovers he is bound by the first will, which he knew nothing about. He goes hunting for a new wealthy wife and comes up with one - a very disagreeable, but outspoken, older widow, Freda, whose husband passed away six months previous. They wed.Then a woman named Charlotte Young, pretty, sweet, wealthy and older than Teddy, enters Teddy and Freda's lives.Eventually there's a confrontational scene between Teddy and Charlotte. This scene is very strange - with Teddy making all sorts of wild-eyed confessions, followed by the two of them literally screaming at each other.The scene is much too long and drawn out and rather unrealistic as well.The ending one can see coming a mile away.5 stars out of 10.

theowinthrop I watched this film this evening for the first time. It's a bit stagy at times (understandable because of the movie's basis in a stage play). This has one bad effect - there is too much dialog in the conclusion, with Dirk Bogarde and Kay Walsh's final confrontation being too long as the psychological control see-saws between them over each other.Dirk Bogarde has become one of the forgotten figures of British cinema in the last thirty years, because of his decision to have a remarkably quiet lifestyle. Up to the 1970s, when he made Visconti's "The Damned", and "Death In Venice", he was one of the leading British cinema stars with great name recognition in America. But after that, the star appeared increasingly infrequently. He would live for several decades more, but by the time he died (even though he had gotten honored) he was like an afterthought. It was a regrettable conclusion for a fine acting career.Bogarde played all kinds of films, from comedies like "Doctor In The House" and "Doctor At Sea" (as Dr. Simon Sparrow) to dramas like "The Spanish Gardener" to war films like "A Bridge Too Far". A homosexual in real life, he portrayed a blackmailed one in "Victim". He was able to do costume films, such as "H.M.S.Defiant". And that last film brings up an interesting point - Bogarde was quite good at playing villains. His character in "The Damned" is a fortune hunter marrying into a Krupp-like family, who willingly sells his soul to the Nazis to get backup for his ambitions (and eventually is out-maneuvered by even more ruthless figures). In "Libel" he is fighting charges of impersonation and treason, playing two men who were in a P.O.W. camp together (one a good guy, one a sneak).Bogarde plays "Teddy" Bare, a charming creep who romances elderly, rich women. He aims at Mona Washbourne, and succeeds with her, but before he kills her she changes her will so he can't benefit. He then aims at a younger woman (Margaret Leighton), who is loud and common. Someone on this thread compared Bogarde's character to Charlie Chaplin as "Monsieur Verdoux". If one does that (although Chaplin is far more suave), Leighton resembles a rougher version of Martha Raye. But she is also not easy to twist like Washbourne had seemed. So Bogarde aims for Kay Walsh, another older woman with money. He thinks she might be a better target - and then he starts finding her quite unsettling. Is he pursuing Walsh as another Victim, or is she hunting him, and why?The conclusion is quite predictable (unfortunately) due to one of the characters showing up for the last confrontation, suggesting what has to happen to Bogarde. But the acting (especially Leighton's lower class rich woman who is fragile despite her hard shell) is quite good. And Bogarde is such a fascinating creep...as he was in all his villain roles.