Spondonman The day Alistair Sim died in 1976 this was the film UK BBC1 showed in tribute, and it was the first time I'd seen it. Over the years this particular effort has seemed to me to gain in stature, it's power and poignancy increasing as we maybe realise all the more that some lessons are never learnt, and that the wheel of life is oiled by life's mistakes. Sim made some unforgettable appearances in films throughout the '40's and '50's - also being unforgettable in The Ladykillers even though he turned it down.In 1912 an enigmatic police inspector named Poole calls on a well-to-do family with information that a girl they've all been involved with has been found dead. And more, much more. It's Green For Danger Meets Last Holiday Meets Dead Of Night, with a nod to Ophuls in part thanks to Chagrin's music. The cast are wonderful, Sim at his eccentric best with his black humour sometimes bordering on grisly. Only one skeleton was in this family closet though... Priestley's play was transferred to the big screen perfectly – you seldom remember it was a play it's so classily photographed showing the cast being inspected. As in Priestley's later story Last Holiday which was filmed earlier (and which also had music by Chagrin and Sim's Ladykillers substitute) the co-incidences pile up, are in turn believed, disbelieved, and eventually boggled over, by the cast and us.Wonderful and engrossing moral entertainment! Is it impossible to make thoughtful little gems like this, like this anymore? If remade all its polish and erudition would be more or less thrown to the winds: the cast would be cursing and coarse with graphic sex and violence to keep the viewer amused. A point would be made but the point would be lost.

appealing_talent I have an excellent copy of this rare and wonderful film and Alastair Sim introduces himself -distinctly- as Inspector Poole, the daughter's fiancé asks a police officer about the Inspector using that name and the police officer repeats the name. Goole is a rather gruesome reference to ghoul, I think, and the benevolent Inspector was not at all depicted as a creepy or menacing man. J.B. Priestley meant this piece to be as much a morality play as a mystery, I believe. The Inspector was supposed to be either an angel on a mission or God himself giving these unconscious people a chance to redeem themselves for their thoughtless and compassionless actions... The performances are uniformly top notch and Alastair Sim's, in particular, rivals his unsurpassed portrayal of Scrooge in the finest version of "A Christmas Carol." I highly recommend this film as a first class lesson in the common foibles of human nature and how we have the ability to achieve salvation if we take responsibility for our faults.

fuhgeddaboutit01 JB Priestley usually had a moralising theme to his plays.As a Socialist he wanted to show his audience the social ills in society and prick their conscience.This film, which my son studied for his English GCSE was made into a film in 1954 with Alistair Sim in the title role.To help my son get a better understanding we all went up to the West End to see the play acted by professionals.It has a haunting theme about the social ills in the Edwardian society of 1912 when a girl first loses her job at the factory when asking for higher wages by the father, loses her second job courtesy of the daughter, loses her flat courtesy of the daughter's fiancé, is made pregnant by the son and finally is refused genuine charity by the mother.My son returned the favour by giving me a DVD version of the film when I expressed a wish to see it, since one sees so few worthy films on TV these days compared to all the modern rubbish shown.There is rather a ghostly denouement to the film and twist which Priestley cleverly writes into the plot.Although Alistair Sim is only on screen for a short time he effortlessly steals your attention.

HEFILM This plays just fine as a straight forward mystery movie, but the play has more potential than that and as a straight forward mystery without the rich suggestive overtones the plot is admittedly a bit out there. So when you play something straight that isn't straight what you get is this.Guy Hamilton doesn't add much to the proceedings and the performers mostly go through the motions in a surface way that is totally at odds with the material. There is no building sense of doom or desperation to most of the thing. It's slow and steady. Actually much of the flat footed surface approach I'd put the blame on Hamilton. At his worst he was one of those, "oh this is all just a movie" approach to too much of his output. Part of this made him perfect for Goldfinger but also helped camp up and ultimately start to wreck the Bond films later on. Most of his pre Goldfiner work is, like this film, pretty flat.The music score is pretty lousy, though there isn't much of it, especially the stupid end credit music that further eats away the tone of the piece.There are risky elements for the time and had the film been made in America then it would have been a disaster. Sim is quite good but perhaps a bit too laid back, though he has most of the best moments performance wise, it is again a bit of a missed opportunity to have him not rip loose ever. His expression at the end is memorable. The young brother and sister character's probably come off best, though Bryan Forbes drunk act at one point turns into a good Stan Laurel or Charlie Chaplin thing, that isn't really appropriate.Well photographed and produced, the DVD is spotless. I suppose most or anyone who's heard of this story saw the lat 90's revival which I liked better than this film.So if you prefer your drawing room mysteries done very dry and very safe you'll love this film and it's good on that level if you can still buy into the things that don't stick perhaps to convention.But we'll have to wait for a less safe, more dramatic version of the very good source material rather than this film which prefers melodrama.