The Fallen Idol

In the late '40s, Carol Reed produced two seminal works of British cinema: Odd Man Out (1947) and The Third Man (1949). Between these two masterpieces lay The Fallen Idol (1948), a curious little thriller that doesn't reach its full potential.

Phillipe (Bobby Henrey) is the son of France's ambassador to the UK. With his parents constantly absent he leans on Baines (Ralph Richardson) who regales him with tales of African adventure. Baines' life isn't so glamorous: he's stuck in a loveless marriage with a shrewish wife (Sonia Dresdel) and carrying on an affair with much younger Julie (Michele Morgan). When Mrs. Baines finds out she pressures Phillipe to inform her of Baines' affair. This leads to a husband-and-wife showdown and her death. Scotland Yard thinks it a routine accident, but everyone's suspicious behavior (not the least Phillipe's) changes their minds.

The Fallen Idol starts with a clever idea. Reed and collaborator Graham Greene show the film through Phillipe's eyes, allowing him to misinterpret the very adult happenings around him. A day at the zoo is cover for a tryst; Mrs. Baines kills Phillipe's pet snake to frighten him into informing. His co-dependent relationship with the unhappy Baines forms the movie's strongest point: he gets a father, Baines a son (and a fantasy life). Reed's off-kilter direction, all staircases, polished decor, and Dutch angles, gives an appropriately baroque touch. The first two thirds play marvelously, building character and suspense, as a reverse Hitchcock where evidence points to a non-existent crime.

After the "murder," however, Fallen Idol loses traction. In fairness, Reed avoids the obvious cliche: Phillipe's efforts to exonerate Baines only get him into more trouble. This clever conceit, however, turns the film into little more than an exercise in craftsmanship. Without an actual crime the drama dissipates, the audience wondering when the detectives will note the obvious.

Ralph Richardson ably mixes subdued angst and surface bonhomie. Bobby Henrey isn't as annoying as some child actors, but neither is he especially likeable. Sonia Dresdel is appropriately unhinged but Michele Morgan proves flat. Scotland Yard provides a remarkable crop of character talent: Jack Hawkins, Denis O'Dea (The Informer), Bernard Lee (Last Holiday), Geoffrey Keen (Doctor Zhivago). Torin Thatcher's (The Desert Rats) impatient bobby and Dora Bryan's chatty call girl add light comic relief.

The Fallen Idol doesn't quite add up. It's worth watching, but the intriguing premise doesn't carry through to the end.

Our Man in Havana

Last night I viewed via YouTube yet another Alec Guinness comedy, Carol Reed's film of Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana (1959). The team that brought us The Third Man re-unites for a spy satire of decidedly mixed quality. What it does well it does well, but it has a number of serious flaws that prevent it from being a great film.

The film's plot, set in pre-Castro Cuba, involves Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness), a successful vacuum cleaner salesman struggling to support his frivilous daughter Milly (Jo Morrow). He wishes for more money to send Milly away from Cuba, which is beginning to convulse with revolutionary chaos, and so accepts (albeit reluctantly) the offer a shady Englishman (Noel Coward) to work as MI6's agent in Havana. Jim accepts, feeding MI6 bogus information about Cuban military build-up while accepting their payment, but finds he's playing a very dangeorus game when one of his "agents" is murdered by shady forces, followed by friend, German scientist Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives). With the help of his daughter and secretary (Maureen O'Hara), Wormold tries to escape Cuba and worm his way out of his web of deceit before it's too late.

Our Man in Havana has the trappings of being a great film. Greene and Reed proved with The Third Man that they could combine cynical humor, hard-boiled espionage and stylish direction into a top-notch film, but this movie doesn't have what it needs to go that extra mile and become a true classics.

One of the film's biggest failings is in its lack of seriousness. The film is at its best during the lighter segments; the early scenes are right out of an Ealing Comedy (with the not-Ealing, but Ealing-esque Captain's Paradise being the most pertinent comparison), with rather broad verbal and character humor and nice location work in actual Havana locations. The movie has some great moments, especially Guinness's drawings of Cuban defense installations (which completely flummox his MI6 handlers), Guinness playing alcoholic chess with Kovacs, and especially Coward "propositioning" Guinness in a pub while recruitng him (an extremely risque scene, all the funnier to those familiar with the actor's private lives).

This part is all well and good, but the movie is clearly trying to be more than just a flippant, whimsical comedy, and its transitions to seriousness (or at least dark, caustic satire) towards the end just don't work. Alec Guinness is believable as a mild-mannered, flustered and gleefully duplictious false agent but not as the tough guy the script requires him to be towards the end, and he fails to spark much chemistry with Maureen O'Hara, badly underused as his loyal secretary. The movie fails to bring an appropriate sense of menace given its dark undertones and subject matter, and the movie is Hitchcockian in its maddening vagueness as to who, exactly, is our hero's adversary. Captain Segura is vaguely menacing but is portrayed as more of a bumbler than a real menace, and we see little or nothing of the oppressive Batista regime so often referenced in the script (perhaps understandable since it was filmed on location in Cuba). As a comedy it works well, but it's too broad, vague and flippant to have much impact as satire of Cold War politics or espionage.

Technically the film is well-done but not overly impressive. There is nice location photography, but only a few strongly shot moments - the movie is pretty much routine coverage, and doesn't even approach Reed's work on The Third Man. Frank Denis's score is pretty routine and doesn't contribute a whole lot to the film.

The movie assembles a cast of great British and American talent. Surprisingly, Alec Guinness gives a fairly weak performance; he seems overwhelmed by the twisting, turning plot twists and tonal shifts. Because he's Alec Guinness he gets a few laughs and strong moments but he doesn't own the film the way he does, say, The Lavender Hill Mob or The Captain's Paradise or The Horse's Mouth. More effective is the supporting cast. Although Maureen O'Hara is largely wasted, there are fine turns by Burl Ives as Dr. Hasselbacher, giving a strong straight performance, an amusing turn by Ernie Kovacs as Guinness's Cuban adversary, Paul Rogers as a duplictious double agent, and fine supporting turns by old pros Noel Coward and Ralph Richardson as Wormold's flustered MI6 handlers.

So, Our Man in Havana is a fun but mostly disposable entry in Guinness's and Reed's careers - worth a look for a few laughs, but nothing overly special.

Rating: 7/10 - Recommended