AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

karen5778 This movie is obviously a competent adaptation of a book. It is pretty good, if you like grade B noir, and we do, but the most fun is seeing familiar faces playing against type and/or putting on Italian accents.The villain in particular was a shocker, as I'd only seen him in light comedies. The most fun was looking up the bios of the actors on IMDb. It is one of those ones where a lot of the actors played roles in WWII themselves, some of them more dramatic than the parts they play here.IMDb requires 10 (!) lines of text, so I will say the pigeons of Venice are amazing, some of the best lines are idiotic in context, and why have a chase scene in a glass factory if you aren't going to break any glass? I guess they didn't have the budget as they filmed in a real glass factory. And, IMDb, "bios" is not a misspelling of BIOS, it is a common term for biography.

davidmgeer As another reviewer says this is something of an underrated film. More so since it was made in 1952. At that time exchange controls would have limited the amount of filming that could be done overseas and so much of it was studio filmed in England. The story is intricate and the full meaning is not revealed until the final 20 minutes. If Venice seems harsh and cold its very much in the recovery from war mode yet the back drop is excellently atmospheric. The absence of tourists is refreshing. The films high contrast back and white rendition is also noteworthy.Good cast....Not hard to see why some say Bond meets 3rd man! Even some classy looking femmes fa tales!

tedg Many of these detective series had to be formulaic. That is the nature of a series. So if you want to differentiate, one strategy is to introduce exotic locations. When this was made, that was still rare. The location has to be highlighted in the name, so we have Charlie Chan, the Saint, the Falcon and so in such and such a city. The place here is Venice. Unfortunately it is not captured well. For some reason, the texture of the city escapes the usual camera. (I did like the color you got in the Clooney "The Job" and the Bond "XXX").So the setting is largely wasted by the clumsy camera, except for a visit to a Murano glassworks. The glass factories are located on an island near the city because of the ancient fear of fire. These for hundreds of years have been a wonder of the world, once secret, now a bit tired. When this film was made, Chihuly had not yet brought Murano to our attention and the polluting effect of tourism had not occluded its magic.It is only a few minutes in this otherwise ordinary adventure. And it is just background motion. But you might as I, hold it a dear experience to just see.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

JohnHowardReid A millionaire hires a private detective to find and reward a wartime partisan who saved his life. Unfortunately, the man does not want to be found. Sound familiar? It ought to be. "Family Plot" is a blatant variation.One of the best cinema translations of a mystery thriller ever made, the pacily-directed "Venetian Bird" started life as a gripping page-turner by Victor Canning who was, most fortunately, called upon to write the screenplay from his own book by astute producer, Betty Box, who saw to it that a fine cast of players headed by Richard Todd, Eva Bartok and Walter Rilla were assembled and flown to the suitably noirish Venice locations where the film was actually photographed.From its attention-grabbing credits superimposed on a high angle over St Mark's Square, and underlined by Nino Rota's superlatively evocative music score, to the thrilling conclusion in that same square (astutely borrowed from Orson Welles' "The Stranger"), "Venetian Bird" is a high-flying movie. (What idiot changed Victor Canning's most appropriate title to "The Assassin"? No wonder all the movie's fans live abroad! The American title gives half the plot away before a patron even enters the theater or switches on the TV. As he twiddles his thumbs while he sits through all the now non-suspenseful exposition of the first half of the film, the American viewer must wonder why all the on-screen characters are so incredibly stupid. If you know the plot even before Richard Todd swings into action—and "swings" is the word, because he performs all his own breathtaking stunts—and the super-lovely Eva Bartok brings an otherwise spellbinding touch of mystery to her enigmatic role, you may well conclude that "Venetian Bird", despite all its atmospheric trappings, is no masterpiece of suspense.All the same, it's still difficult to downgrade Ernest Steward's strikingly somber, moody camera-work, or the charisma of the players. Only the normally reliable John Gregson fails to convince. Fortunately, his part is small. The support cast is otherwise in the reliable hands of people like Walter Rilla's delightfully suave and sinister villain, and Margot Grahame's fine-tuned, carelessly guiltless charmer.