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Investigating the brutal murder of a fun-fair fortune teller, a detective encounters five different witnesses' accounts of her character.
This ingenious noir thriller provides an opportunity for Jean Kent to give the stand-out performance of her career as the murder victim who is seen though different eyes throughout the narrative. Every critic in the world has pointed out this obvious fact, but very few have zeroed in on Susan Shaw who gives a far more subtle but nonetheless equally telling interpretation of the victim's sister as her part in the drama is also recalled by the various witnesses.
Also handing out an astonishingly well-rounded performance is Dirk Bogarde who cleverly overdoes the bogus American accent in order to tip the audience off to his real persona. He fooled me completely.
All the actors are well-nigh perfect. The only player I have any problem with is Duncan Macrae in the key role of Superintendent Lodge. To my mind, Macrae lacks the charisma for this important part and I would have much preferred to see Duncan Lamont, a fine actor, who does wonders with his small and inconsequential role as a direction finder at the fun fair.
Asquith has handled his players well, although I thought that a little more ingenuity in camera angles would have made the film even more noirishly appealing.
score 9/10
JohnHowardReid 17 September 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1947267/ |
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26-3-2021 06:05:05