RyothChatty ridiculous rating

Micitype Pretty Good

Borserie it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Myriam Nys A young war widow has gone on with her life, falling in love with an attractive man. Strangely, she begins to receive disquieting messages that suggest her husband might be still alive. Who would want to perpetrate such a cruel hoax on a blameless citizen ? And why ?This is a thriller with an enormously original intrigue - as it should be, since it is based on Margery Allingham's marvelously clever and inventive novel of the same name. The movie is at its evocative best when describing a London shrouded in an oppressive smog. It's a world turned dark and grey, where vast blankets of polluted fog fill the streets, to the point where people can't find their houses and dogs can't recognize their masters. Every now and then one can catch a glimpse of some disquieting scene, such as a group of raddled, unhinged veterans moving serpent-like towards ever grimmer destinations. ("Tiger", by the way, is to be commended for its bravery in describing the long-term human cost of war. It's easy for authorities and politicians to say "John Smith survived the war and re- entered civil life", but what if John Smith, upon his return, discovered that he had lost his job, neighborhood and family ? Or what if the horrors of war had coarsened and unhinged him so badly that he became a danger to himself and to others ?) The smog, of course, isn't just an environment in which wicked things happen : as an air pollution problem verging on a disaster it is a wicked thing itself, looking for babes and innocents to devour. Still, I'm not entirely sure that "Tiger" succeeds in capturing the tone of Allingham's book, which was a skillful mix of the mundane and the grotesque. I need to add, immediately, that filming the book can't be easy : it must be as difficult as trying to bottle the elusive scent of a rare mountain flower. As a result some of the scenes fall flat or sound strangely off, such as the discussion between a kind, possibly even saintly canon and his attacker. There is also a sequence involving a hazardous and torturous climb over some rocks. Here the problem seems to be technical in nature ; it's not hard to imagine a bad-tempered crew trying to lug heavy equipment over an ungrateful surface. One can almost hear an aggrieved voice saying : "Go on, sunshine, thesp as much as you want, but stretch that leg two inches more to the left and it's bye-bye to an Astrolux-XZ-350, and it won't be me who's going to pay a thousand pounds out of his own pocket". The effect of this sequence, predictably, is less than blood-curdling.However, the movie is a useful introduction to the delightful novels of Allingham, who was one of the great Ladies of Crime. In her own way she was fully the equal of luminaries such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.

JohnHowardReid Made at Pinewood Studios, London. The Rank Organisation presents a Leslie Parkyn Production, made with the co-operation of the City of London Police, and released in the U.K. by J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors: 17 December 1956. No New York opening. In fact, never theatrically released in the U.S.A. Australian release through British Empire Films: 21 November 1957. Sydney opening at the Victory. British length: 8,457 feet. 94 minutes. 97 minutes in Australia.SYNOPSIS: Ten years alter the death of her husband in action, Meg Elgin (Muriel Pavlow), now engaged to Geoffrey Levett (Donald Sinden), begins to receive clippings from recent magazines showing her husband at social events. (Available on an excellent ITV DVD).COMMENT: There's quite a lot I'd like to say about this marvelous film, which I regard as the best mystery/suspense thriller to come out of England. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm is not shared. I will admit that, when you stop to think about it, the tale is wildly improbable. But who's going to stop and think? I will also admit that Margery Allingham fans have a case for under-rating the movie because Pelissier's superlative script drops the aristocratic Allingham hero, Edmund Campion, right out of the proceedings altogether. But this "unkind cut" doesn't worry me. It sets me cheering. Why? I always thought Campion a bore. More importantly, the film is far too off-beat, weird and bizarre to attract the general public, yet not unconventional in a sufficiently kinky way to arouse the interest of the corduroy set. In other words, it falls between quite a number of stools, — and that's one of the minor reasons I rate it so highly. My major thought when I think about Tiger in the Smoke is its atmosphere. Really quite unique. A blend of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with The Dark Eyes of London. So relentlessly gripping that when the mysterious killer is finally uncovered, his less than psychotic motive comes almost as an anticlimax.Atmosphere is created and achieved through the ingenious collaboration of highly inventive direction, startlingly imaginative cinematography, creatively dynamic, isolated yet claustrophobic sets, and a music score combining stark dissonance with hideously haunting, superficially melodious, popular claptrap. All four of these gentlemen — Roy Ward Baker, Geoffrey Unsworth, Jack Maxsted, Malcolm Arnold — should take a bow from their brilliant work here (which far surpasses all their other achievements, — some of them quite notable). But were they nominated for any awards? Of course not!The picture's technical achievements are so compulsively engrossing, the acting comes almost as an afterthought. Yet here too, the viewer confronts distinctions in all departments. The principals — Sinden, Pavlow, Wright, and Miles — never gave more charismatic performances. The lead players — Clunes, Naismith, Rhodes, and Victor — were never more compellingly convincing; while the cameo actors, led by the fascinating Kenneth Griffith, were never more sharply precise. In short, Pelissier has done wonders with Allingham's novel. As have all the craftsmen and women who worked on the movie. "Tiger in the Smoke" emerges nothing like the usual bland Rank product at all. A genuinely frightening film, it's one of the great achievements of British cinema and certainly deserves to rank alongside "The Third Man" in the mystery/suspense field.

dracher This film is not in any way a gripping story, in fact, it seems as one watches it, to be three films cut and compressed to make one. So, what's wrong with it? The main problem is the fact that it has too many characters, too many mediocre actors (one appallingly bad one) too many angles and not enough of a story, the denouement is positively under whelming and one is left not caring about anyone, except perhaps, the canon played beautifully by that most reliable and welcome of actors, Laurence Naismith.So why am I bothering to write about it? Because it is one of those worthwhile ventures, one of those film projects that had so much going for it on paper that it deserved to become a huge success. The directing of camera was for the most part brilliant, with many innovative techniques, some of them well ahead of the industry's time. The directing of the actors was uneven and sometimes non existent, which allowed better actors to get disorderly and the poor ones (there were a few) to go off the edge or simply flounder, the actor playing Johnny Havoc, the film's central bad guy, was simply not up to the role, and should have been recast, he indulged in "mad acting" "golden haze" and "falling on furniture" all things no actor should ever be allowed to get away with, and in his one great scene (in the cellar with his gang) he blew every opportunity the script afforded him to shine and to create great drama, as a result, the scene fell like seeds on stony ground.Having said this, the film was made with some great care and there were moments that broke all barriers for the time. The actor playing the Inspector(against type from the book)was good, and the supporting police force actors were good, Charles Victor(though very near the edge most of the time) provided a welcome uplift, and Laurence Naismith was (as usual) on top of his job. Donald Sinden had not at this time developed his hard jaw and tight teeth acting and so was quite acceptable as the new man in the life of the love interest (an actress who did so very well with what she was given, which wasn't very much) and he was handsome enough to be taken for Richard Green. This is a good film if you allow for the obvious flaws, and deserves a place alongside great works, for it's bravery and innovative techniques, as well as some of the character acting, odd bits of which, were brilliant.Dracher

southernferrets I saw this gripping,atmospheric little picture on its initial British release half a century ago.I was eight years old,and it's one of a handful of British pictures from that era which haunted me for years. It's very rarely shown on British T.V.,so I never got to see it again until 1985. It had held up remarkably well, and I've watched the videotaped copy I made several times since. As far as I'm aware it was never made commercially available on video, and I'm hoping it might join the growing number of rare British thrillers from the fifties made available on DVD.Director Roy Baker is probably best known these days for the horror pictures he made for Hammer and Amicus in the seventies, all of which are markedly inferior to his earlier British work. His first picture, the moody psychological thriller "The October Man",(1948) starring John Mills,is exceptionally good, and "Tiger in the Smoke" has all the same virtues; a strong cast of seasoned character actors, a pungent sense of place, highly effective suspense and a sinister aura of moral decay. Early scenes involving a seedy gang of ex-commando street musicians are masterly.Muriel Pavlow was surely the most beautiful and talented of the Rank Organisation "charm school" actresses, and Tony Wright is chillingly effective as the psychotic Johnny Havoc, whose search for hidden treasure sets the plot in motion. The critic and theorist Raymond Durgnat wrote in 1969 that this was the most dreamlike British film outside of the horror genre. It deserves wider appreciation.