Not With A Bang

boblipton

There are three "murder" stories in this anthology film, two of them with fantastic plots -- in the sense of being fantasies, rather than very good. Eamon Andrews introduces each segment. Alan Badel is the only performer who appears in all three segments, which are based on stories by Somerset Moore, Brett Halliday and Roderick Wilkinson.

After the weird fantasy of the first story, I found the second, a far more standard whodunnit to be a letdown, and by the time it returned to a dream structure with the third one, there was an air of pretension to the entire affair, despite it starring Orson Welles ... or perhaps because of it.

Anthology films are nothing new in movies, of course. INTOLERANCE is an early example. Yet Griffith's movie depends on the individual stories supporting each other, and in being edited to that end. Yet structurally, there is a problem in looking at a single film that tells three separate stories: there's no real sense of completion. No sooner do you end the first story, ready for a break, or at least a change of pace, than you began the second, and it's more of the same. With this one, when the third story ends, despite the talent involved, it seems to trail off. The individual stories are very good, but the net effect is one of exhaustion.

score 6/10

boblipton 11 December 2019

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5314469/