Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

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ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Cooktopi The acting in this movie is really good.

lucyrfisher I love this film for the atmosphere. It seems to be always October, the dark time of the year, and the cast seem to love wandering about a lonely common at night. John Mills comes out of hospital to live in a residential hotel. The other guests are a motley crew, beautifully played by Joyce Carey and others. Miss Heap, who is always moaning "Miss Selbeeee! Could we have more coal?" Joyce Carey, with her beautiful face which hides a soul that only cares about bridge and gossip. The weedy Mr Pope, who turns out to be rather a good egg. And Miss Newman, the underwear model with the dubious boyfriend. (That camel-hair overcoat is a giveaway.) The hotel is almost a character in its own right with its furnishings unchanged for at least 40 years. John Mills falls for the sister of a colleague, whose family represents normality and thick- headed respectability. She is played by Joan Greenwood, with an unflattering hairdo and unbelievably frumpy clothes. Kay Walsh as the model, with her stash of gin and book on horoscopes, seems much more amusing. I think someone should reinvent residential hotels.

bkoganbing One of the best pieces of acting I've seen John Mills do is in this film The October Man. It takes part of its plot from Laura and part of it from the American film High Wall that starred Robert Taylor.Mills as he did on so many occasions was the British average Joe who as it happens suffers a traumatic brain injury as a result of a train wreck. He blacks out and comes back with no apparent rhyme or reason and his treating doctor Felix Aylmer says that's likely to go on for some time. No reason though he can't resume normal life and employment. Which he does and starts living at a boarding house with the usual amount of busybodies. He even gets a relationship of sorts going with both Joan Greenwood and Kay Walsh. But when Walsh turns up murdered, Mills is looking real good for it to Scotland Yard guys Frederick Piper and John Boxer.Of course Mills didn't do it, but the fascinating thing with The October Man is that we do learn before the end who did do it and that individual confesses to Mills. The perpetrator is also a mentally unstable, but has learned to hide it. And it looks very much as if Mills will not be able to prove his innocence.The focus of The October Man is on Mills's plight. It's one of the best pieces of acting I've ever seen from John Mills. He does you really do think he's about to get into a jackpot not of his own doing.The October Man was very much influenced by Hollywood noir, although I'm sure our friends across the pond could say our noir films were influenced by this. It's a very moody cinematographic piece with expert use of shadow and lights. And John Mills is heartbreaking in the role.Don't miss this if it is ever broadcast again on this side of the Atlantic.

Jozef Kafka I first heard of this 1947 British film in one of Leslie Halliwell's books. Written by Eric Ambler and directed by Roy Baker, it's kind of a British answer to Hollywod's noir, essentially a reworking of Grahame Greene's Ministry Of Fear. Chemist (and I do mean "chemist", not pharmacist or apothecary) John Mills blames himself for the death a friend's daughter in a bus crash, which also gives Mills a concussion and tendencies towards blackouts and amnesia. Quicker than you can say "Alfred Hitchcock" Mills is accused of murdering a fellow resident of his boarding house, and poor old John can't remember if he did it or not. What's most fascinating to me is the subtext -- Mills is clearly supposed to represent returning war veterans, but the film's makers were too afraid to have war wounds be the source of his blackouts (even though H'wood had already done it in The Blue Dahlia) and instead resorted to the bus crash contrivance. There is effective direction by Baker (who went to H'wood and made the classic 3D "depthie" Inferno, later returning to England to do A Night To Remember) and Ambler's script is good, with a few surprise scattered throughout.

bob the moo When a bus crashes due to mechanical failure, industrial chemist Jim Ackland survives but suffers a serious head injury that he has not fully recovered from even when he is discharged from hospital. He goes about his life again despite this and winds up in a small hotel. It is here he meets Molly Newman who asks him for financial help and spends a small amount of time with him. When she is found murdered on the common Ackland has no alibi and everyone seems to believe he was the killer. However with his head injury, even Ackland himself cannot be sure that he didn't do it and the gallows beckon.The basic plot sounded like it would be a cross between the "innocent accused out to clear his name" crossed with the "I've got amnesia could I be the killer?" plot devices and I suppose in essence that is just what it is. In that regard it sounded good but what I wasn't prepared for was the totally lethargic delivery crossed with a terminal lack of tension or pace. The story just plods along and it seems a long amount of time is spent in the build up to put detail in place that is never really used. Even after the murder the whole thing moves forward with very little urgency and it is only in the final ten minutes where you feel like lives are at stake here and that things are urgent. By this time though it is too little too late and the whole thing is sorted out far too easily and tidily.The cast can't do a great deal with the material given all these problems. Mills is a sturdy and reliable lead but he just seems a little disturbed by the accusations and you never believe that he is a man pushed close to the edge. Chapman was a strange find for someone who has seen too many Norman Wisdom films and his presence was not that much of a benefit generally. Support from Greenwood, Walsh, Carey and others is all so-so but in fairness, as with all of them, the material didn't give any of them much to work with.Overall this is a familiar story but it is told with such a sleepy pace that it is hard to have interest in the telling. The cast are left to do the best they can but neither they nor the director can get any pace into the film and I just gradually lost interest to the point where a final ten minutes of dramatic music, running and "races against time" weren't enough to save it.