The Worst Film Ever

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Well filmed and acted. The cinematography is first class and enjoyable.I found the story unfortunately a little too obvious (you know who did it immediately) and that it will be resolved in some way in the letter the murdered woman sent.Also you have to suspend disbelief on numerous things...that the police wouldn't search the dead woman's room carefully (and find her love letters) is the most obvious one. There were others (it sure is easy to escape from British cops) but for what movies do you not have to suspend your disbelief a little?It is too bad they couldn't have sharpened up the story just a bit because all the other values are excellent...acting superb camera work etc...It rates a 7--it is leagues better than most of the quota British films of the 50s.RECOMMEND

The October Man (1947)A tightly constructed, well acted, moody, night drenched murder mystery. Very British, very good. Is it amazing? No, but it beats old t.v. hands down. I mean, it's a layered, nuanced, gradually evolving story with some real feeling to it. But it's also a packaged affair, neatly imagined and in the ends not a bit surprising. The romance, at least, is satisfying--the couple seems a good match.Eric Ambler, who wrote and produced, was a high visibility popular author at the time, and you have to assume the movie feels as close to the writer's intentions as possible. Director Roy Ward Baker is only on his second film here, and it shows a natural talent for economy and drama. (He would later direct the Richard Widmark, Marilyn Monroe suspense noir, "Don't Bother to Knock" during a stay in Hollywood.) His most famous film might now be "A Night to Remember" because it was the most complete telling of the Titanic story leading up to Cameron's.In a seemingly British way, the story here is neatly contained. Agatha Christy comes to mind when the main character enters the hotel where most of the action occurs, and we get to know the small number of residents there, each a distinct type. And when the murder (of course) happens, we are led to suspect this person or that. Or at least we are supposed to. The movie makes the perp all too obvious, even before the crime, so you have to depend on how well the story is told instead of being curious who done it.And it's well told indeed. The supporting cast, including the love interest, is competent. The leading man, the falsely accused victim of an earlier bus crash, is rather excellent, played by veteran serious actor John Mills. And all the foggy night scenes, and train and train station sections, ought to make those of you nostalgic for old Britain very happy.

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.

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.