Film 2014 : The Clouded Yellow (1950)
This movie came up thanks to Lovefilm’s “people who rented…. “ algorithm, and what an excellent recommendation it was. On the whole, for Film 2014, I tend to glance very superficially at the descriptions of the films on the website, and try not to research them beforehand. This is the copy blurb that appears at Lovefilm :
Early 1950s British thriller starring Trevor Howard as David Somers, an ex Secret Service agent who takes on a quiet job at a country estate cataloguing butterflies. However, he is unable to keep a low profile for long: his employer's beautiful niece Sophie (Jean Simmons) is framed for a…
…so I was expecting pretty much the first third of the movie. Trevor Howard as an interloper in a country estate house in a sweltering summer, Barry Jones (the conscience stricken scientist from Seven Days to Noon, made the previous year) as Fenton, his mild mannered butterfly collecting employer, Sonia Dresdel as his wife and Jean Simmons as Sophie, the Fentons’ troubled niece. Somers is there because his last counter-espionage mission (an exfiltration) failed, and Andre Morell, his Service boss, has retired him out of the service as a burnt-out case (whilst instructing Kenneth More to keep an eye on him to make sure Somers keeps out of trouble.)
Jean Simmons is, yet again, compelling, this time in the challenging role of a socially maladjusted girl who had been traumatised at the age of six by discovering the bodies of her parents. Sophie is spiky, unsympathetic, and not a million miles away from the performance Carole Ann Ford wanted to give as Susan twelve years later. (Mrs Fen noticed that one sign of Sophie’s alienation was her terrible fringe.)
If I had read the Lovefilm copy a bit further, or indeed glanced at the film’s IMDB entry, I would have been less surprised when the film changes genre halfway through, from country house claustrophobic suspense to pell-mell chase thriller. (Admittedly, there is a big clue up front in the title card acknowledgements quoted above this entry.) I thoroughly enjoyed this, as Trevor Howard uses all of his tradecraft and counter-espionage contacts to try and smuggle Sophie out of the country - it’s as if Secret Army’s Lifeline organisation had maintained safe houses in Newcastle and Liverpool after the war. (You can tell that we’re in Newcastle as there’s a ragged urchin under a street lamp within sight of the Tyne Bridge, and the film is surprisingly explicit as to what sort of house the Liverpool safe house is.) Meanwhile, Kenneth More (sans vintage car) is hot on his trail, trying to out-think him - which he succeeds in doing…
Eureka’s 2010 DVD release re-instates the crucial opening airport sequence which was missing from previous releases, but sadly suffers from moire patterning in a couple of places thanks to some poor DVD encoding. It’s irritating, but only momentarily distracting.
Next Episode : The Silent Passenger
Early 1950s British thriller starring Trevor Howard as David Somers, an ex Secret Service agent who takes on a quiet job at a country estate cataloguing butterflies. However, he is unable to keep a low profile for long: his employer's beautiful niece Sophie (Jean Simmons) is framed for a…
…so I was expecting pretty much the first third of the movie. Trevor Howard as an interloper in a country estate house in a sweltering summer, Barry Jones (the conscience stricken scientist from Seven Days to Noon, made the previous year) as Fenton, his mild mannered butterfly collecting employer, Sonia Dresdel as his wife and Jean Simmons as Sophie, the Fentons’ troubled niece. Somers is there because his last counter-espionage mission (an exfiltration) failed, and Andre Morell, his Service boss, has retired him out of the service as a burnt-out case (whilst instructing Kenneth More to keep an eye on him to make sure Somers keeps out of trouble.)
Jean Simmons is, yet again, compelling, this time in the challenging role of a socially maladjusted girl who had been traumatised at the age of six by discovering the bodies of her parents. Sophie is spiky, unsympathetic, and not a million miles away from the performance Carole Ann Ford wanted to give as Susan twelve years later. (Mrs Fen noticed that one sign of Sophie’s alienation was her terrible fringe.)
If I had read the Lovefilm copy a bit further, or indeed glanced at the film’s IMDB entry, I would have been less surprised when the film changes genre halfway through, from country house claustrophobic suspense to pell-mell chase thriller. (Admittedly, there is a big clue up front in the title card acknowledgements quoted above this entry.) I thoroughly enjoyed this, as Trevor Howard uses all of his tradecraft and counter-espionage contacts to try and smuggle Sophie out of the country - it’s as if Secret Army’s Lifeline organisation had maintained safe houses in Newcastle and Liverpool after the war. (You can tell that we’re in Newcastle as there’s a ragged urchin under a street lamp within sight of the Tyne Bridge, and the film is surprisingly explicit as to what sort of house the Liverpool safe house is.) Meanwhile, Kenneth More (sans vintage car) is hot on his trail, trying to out-think him - which he succeeds in doing…
Eureka’s 2010 DVD release re-instates the crucial opening airport sequence which was missing from previous releases, but sadly suffers from moire patterning in a couple of places thanks to some poor DVD encoding. It’s irritating, but only momentarily distracting.
Next Episode : The Silent Passenger