A millionaire hires a private detective to find and reward a wartime partisan who saved his life. Unfortunately, the man does not want to be found. Sound familiar? It ought to be. "Family Plot" is a blatant variation.
One of the best cinema translations of a mystery thriller ever made, the pacily-directed "Venetian Bird" started life as a gripping page-turner by Victor Canning who was, most fortunately, called upon to write the screenplay from his own book by astute producer, Betty Box, who saw to it that a fine cast of players headed by Richard Todd, Eva Bartok and Walter Rilla were assembled and flown to the suitably noirish Venice locations where the film was actually photographed.
From its attention-grabbing credits superimposed on a high angle over St Mark's Square, and underlined by Nino Rota's superlatively evocative music score, to the thrilling conclusion in that same square (astutely borrowed from Orson Welles' "The Stranger"), "Venetian Bird" is a high-flying movie. (What idiot changed Victor Canning's most appropriate title to "The Assassin"? No wonder all the movie's fans live abroad! The American title gives half the plot away before a patron even enters the theater or switches on the TV. As he twiddles his thumbs while he sits through all the now non-suspenseful exposition of the first half of the film, the American viewer must wonder why all the on-screen characters are so incredibly stupid. If you know the plot even before Richard Todd swings into actionand "swings" is the word, because he performs all his own breathtaking stuntsand the super-lovely Eva Bartok brings an otherwise spellbinding touch of mystery to her enigmatic role, you may well conclude that "Venetian Bird", despite all its atmospheric trappings, is no masterpiece of suspense.
All the same, it's still difficult to downgrade Ernest Steward's strikingly somber, moody camera-work, or the charisma of the players. Only the normally reliable John Gregson fails to convince. Fortunately, his part is small. The support cast is otherwise in the reliable hands of people like Walter Rilla's delightfully suave and sinister villain, and Margot Grahame's fine-tuned, carelessly guiltless charmer.
One of the best cinema translations of a mystery thriller ever made, the pacily-directed "Venetian Bird" started life as a gripping page-turner by Victor Canning who was, most fortunately, called upon to write the screenplay from his own book by astute producer, Betty Box, who saw to it that a fine cast of players headed by Richard Todd, Eva Bartok and Walter Rilla were assembled and flown to the suitably noirish Venice locations where the film was actually photographed.
From its attention-grabbing credits superimposed on a high angle over St Mark's Square, and underlined by Nino Rota's superlatively evocative music score, to the thrilling conclusion in that same square (astutely borrowed from Orson Welles' "The Stranger"), "Venetian Bird" is a high-flying movie. (What idiot changed Victor Canning's most appropriate title to "The Assassin"? No wonder all the movie's fans live abroad! The American title gives half the plot away before a patron even enters the theater or switches on the TV. As he twiddles his thumbs while he sits through all the now non-suspenseful exposition of the first half of the film, the American viewer must wonder why all the on-screen characters are so incredibly stupid. If you know the plot even before Richard Todd swings into actionand "swings" is the word, because he performs all his own breathtaking stuntsand the super-lovely Eva Bartok brings an otherwise spellbinding touch of mystery to her enigmatic role, you may well conclude that "Venetian Bird", despite all its atmospheric trappings, is no masterpiece of suspense.
All the same, it's still difficult to downgrade Ernest Steward's strikingly somber, moody camera-work, or the charisma of the players. Only the normally reliable John Gregson fails to convince. Fortunately, his part is small. The support cast is otherwise in the reliable hands of people like Walter Rilla's delightfully suave and sinister villain, and Margot Grahame's fine-tuned, carelessly guiltless charmer.