Ironic title, huh? This early David Lean film is typical late 40s British cinema, stiff and bloodless. Except for a lone "Get out of here!" spoken by cuckolded Claude Raines to his cuckholder, Trevor Howard, the proceedings are in the best stick up the rectum tradition that the Brits perfected and which drove the French, especially young film makers like Truffaut, crazy all through the 1950s until, with the advent of the Angry Young Men and the Kitchen Sink genre, English movie dramas finally began to loosen up. Viewed now it all seems a bit overblown and overdone with too melodramatic music and rather obvious cinematic devices, like a cold wind blowing through opened curtains and ticker tape emptily clacking to let us know that Raines' character is callous and emotionless. Still, Eric Ambler's dialogue is literate, Lean's pacing is excellent, as usual, so that the film rarely drags and Raines has rarely been better. Plus, he finally gets the girl in the end! So how can you hate this movie? Give it a B minus.
Review of The Passionate Friends
