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dave-blake
Reviews
The Clouded Yellow (1950)
The importance of a MacGuffin
Hitchcock was of the opinion that audiences aren't really interested in what puts protagonists into danger - only that they ARE in danger, and need to escape.
This film proves Hitchcock was not 100% correct. Police believe Jean Simmons is guilty of a crime, when she plainly isn't. Trevor Howard decides their best course of action is to run for it. And so, the body of the movie has our charismatic pair dodging on and off trains, buses and coaches - jumping across rocks at the top of a waterfall - scrambling across dockyard roofs.
All good exciting stuff - but I couldn't get out of my mind that it was all unnecessary. They should have stayed put.
In other words, the MacGuffin wasn't strong enough.
Appointment with Death (1988)
Crude and clumsy
Michael Winner is listed as one of the writers of this clumsy attempt to tell a Poirot story. I wonder which bits he wrote - I bet it's those bits where the logic of the story started to disintegrate, and he shoved in putty to hide the cracks. Did, for example, Jenny Seagrove mean to put on her brooch upside down - leaving Poirot to point out the mistake at the end of scene? Or did Winner see the mistake at the last minute, and added the Poirot line to save several minutes of film? Poirot spots the drink on board was poisoned, because the roaches that rush out to sip the spillages drop dead. Pretty high-class cruise - I don't think! A cruise ship with cockroaches as dinner companions aptly sums up this film. A sledgehammer cracking a nut can be heard in the background.
3 out of 10 because it's Agatha Christie.
The Steel Key (1953)
The Saint in all but name
"The Steel Key" looks like an early try-out for "The Saint" TV series.
Terence Morgan plays an attractive rogue that police forces around the world would love to catch red-handed; and yet he is happily focused on bringing real criminals to justice.
The "steel key" is a military secret - a "Macguffin" that matters not one jot. The baddies want it - Terence Morgan's character (who uses three different names during the film) gets involved by pretending to have it.
Forsythe, the policeman, is Chief Inspector Teal by another name. And Joan Rice is absolutely charming in the love interest role.
Good fun - with nice views of Fifties Newhaven.