Libel

Sir Mark Loddon has been having a hard time of it since he returned from WWII. He was in a German prison camp and then was injured badly during his escape. Everyone, including himself, assumes that his emotional state and spotty memory of things that happened before his escape are due to his wartime trauma. We call it PTSD now, they called it "shell shock" back in the day. He's subject to night terrors and he is always seeing some terrifying reflection in mirrors, water, whatever.

And then along comes somebody from his past, Jeffrey Buckenham, who escaped with Loddon. Buckenham is saying that Loddon is in fact an impoverished actor named Frank Wellney who could have passed for Loddon as far as looks go and who was always trying to find out personal details about Loddon and impersonating him. Wellney, along with he and Loddon, escaped the prison camp together. The three got separated, and (from a great distance) Buckenham witnessed what he believes is the aftermath of the murder of one body double by the other. Only after seeing Loddon on a TV program about famous English castles and noticing that Loddon has the same finger missing as Wellney had has Buckenham decided to come forward with his suspicions.

Buckenham doesn't want blackmail money. Instead, he wants to expose Wellney for the fraud that he is. Buckenham goes to a local newspaper and tells them his tale and the paper prints it, with a great deal of publicity being stirred up since Loddon is quite wealthy and owner of a large manor. Loddon wants to ignore the whole thing and let it blow over, but his wife, Margaret (Olivia De Haviland), says they must sue the paper and Buckenham for libel as otherwise this scandal would always hang over their son. So Loddon becomes a reluctant plaintiff. But why is he so reluctant?

Thus the rest of the film is a courtroom drama with lots of interesting turns including a surprise witness with a story that turns out to have a kind of Frankenstein monster twist to it. The really interesting part of the plot's dynamics is that Loddon was so terribly wounded and shell-shocked in the aftermath of the escape that he himself begins to doubt who he is and what exactly he has done to the missing Mark Loddon, if he in fact is not Mark Loddon himself.

The casting is wonderful. De Haviland is great as a woman who at first completely believes in her husband, but after all of this testimony is beginning to have doubts. Wilfred Hyde-White and Robert Marley are the clever barristers. Anthony Dawson plays Mark's sly cousin who would inherit the entire Loddon estate if it can be proved that the person claiming to be Mark Loddon is an imposter. Finally there is Dirk Bogarde who convincingly plays both the aristocratic Loddon and the oily Wellney as two very different types of people, and also excels at playing whoever the troubled person is sitting next to Olivia De Haviland in the courtroom.

I unabashedly admit that Dirk Bogarde is one of my favorite actors, so naturally, two of him is better. In "Libel," directed by Anthony Asquith, he has a dual role - that of a baron, Sir Mark Sebastian Loddon, and Frank Welney, an actor and a lookalike in his barracks during World War II. When Mark returns from the war, he can't remember a lot of his past life and is haunted by images of events during the war that he can't connect with. Another soldier sees the baron on television and believes that he is really Frank Welney, and the story is published in a tabloid. Mark's wife (Olivia de Havilland) insists that for the sake of their young son, he sue for libel. He does.

This is an often-told story, but I enjoyed it anyway. Bogarde is excellent as the uptight, insecure Mark and the cocky, nosy Frank, and while there is a strong resemblance between the two men, Welney's coloring and hairstyle is different, as is his manner. De Havilland turns in another marvelous, emotional performance as a woman who starts out believing her husband is indeed the man she loved before the war... and then having her doubts.

Well directed and holds one's interest.

This movie employs good actors, particularly some of the great English character actors of the time. However, the premise of the plot- one person changing identities with another, ruined the movie for me. What I don't understand, and wish some other movie buff could explain, how do writers get paid for stories when they show an complete lack of basic understanding of the military. Even way back in WWII, English soldiers were fingerprinted, and most soldiers wore their dog tags religiously, particularly those who served in combat. I would imagine a baron would be particularly concerned that his remains arrive back in the family plot. These two facts of military life were never explained. The final insult to our intelligence came when a uniform of a near comatose patient is presented in the court room. Since the war ended in 1945, and the setting of the movie was contempory (1959), 14 years had elapsed. What happened to the soldier's identification tags? What efforts had been made to notify the patient's family? In real life, the question of responsibility would have generated a search to determine whether the patient was a British soldier. The two main characters were captured at the evacuation at Dunkirk, often referred as the Miracle of Dunkirk because 400,000 soldiers did excape. The number of majors captured at Dunkirk would have been relatively small, and if a hospital was stuck with a patient for long term care, it stands to reason a serious effort would be made to determine who their patient was.

Dirk Bogarde carries the main burden of this interesting courtroom drama co-starring Olivia de Havilland. Bogarde is an English barrister accused of being an imposter by a wartime buddy who has mistaken a look-alike they both knew in a POW camp as the man who has become Sir Mark Loddon. His understanding wife stands by him and encourages him to sue for libel but soon comes to have doubts of her own. Toward the climax, she turns on her husband and accuses him of "stealing" her love. Bogarde and de Havilland both have some excellent dramatic moments but it is Bogarde who rivets the attention with his fascinating dual role, achieving a distinct difference between the two men with just a slight change of hair style and a shift in attitude. Wilfred Hyde-White and Robert Morley are good in supporting roles as opposing barristers. It all moves smoothly under Anthony Asquith's crisp direction and all of the domestic scenes were filmed at the Duke of Bedford's magnificent country estate, giving production values a touch of elegance. The POW flashbacks are quite convincing--and the courtroom twist toward the end is nicely handled--if not quite convincing. Sometimes confusing--but always absorbing. MGM should release this one to video!

Dirk Bogarde was a marvelous actor, and this is a fine film. But if you insist on believable stories, you won't like it. It's as true to life as an Agatha Christie story, and just as entertaining.

The plot is this: An English lord and a penniless scoundrel who looks exactly like him are in the same POW camp during World War II. Years later, another veteran claims the scoundrel actually killed the aristocrat and has been impersonating him ever since. The whole thing winds up in court, putting the aristocrat's wife through some agonizing moments. Finally, when nobody can stand the suspense any longer, the truth is revealed.

The idea of someone meeting his exact double is as silly as it is unbelievable, and by the 1950s there were ways to verify whether a living man was the war veteran he claimed to be. So you can't take this seriously. But if you suspend disbelief, you will really enjoy it. Though it's not marketed as a mystery, it's ideal for mystery fans.

I had to talk my wife into watching this movie on TCM, because it looked to her like a gloomy psychological drama. Once she started watching, she couldn't turn away (especially when Dirk Bogarde was on the screen). She was still talking about it an hour after it ended. "What if something like that really happened?" she remarked. Well, it wouldn't, but ...