Woohoo, Fritz Lang and Graham Greene, together at last! Alas, neither one was happy with the output, which they could blame largely on writer-producer Seton I. Miller exercising too much creative control in his deviation from the novel. But the movie's still pretty esteemed, so I had to check it out.
At a British village fair, Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) accidentally says a code phrase and comes into possession of a cake containing a MacGuffin. Someone tries to make off with it by violent force, but the chaos of war ensures that nobody has it anymore. Suspecting the alleged charity that gave him the cake, Neale hires a PI (Erskine Sanford) to help investigate. Organizer Willi Hilfe (Carl Esmond) and his sister Carla (Marjorie Reynolds) appear surprised at the possibility of a spy ring in their ranks and offer their own cooperation. Of course, this wouldn't be the first Lang picture or the first Greene picture to feature major secret Nazi infiltration, so our heroes may have bitten off more than they can chew. It doesn't help that Neale wants to avoid contact with the police, because he was only recently released from an asylum....
Yeah, Lang isn't big on fully innocent protagonists. That said, Neale's guilt is significantly toned down from that of Arthur Rowe, the book's protagonist: While both men are responsible for their ailing wives' deaths, Neale claims he acted only on his wife's pleas and didn't administer the poison he procured -- or even mean for her to find it, after a change of heart. I think this downplaying is just as well for viewer sympathy. They can't all be M.
Lang also likes to portray police as very similar to the criminals, perhaps equally creepy and only marginally less corrupt. That factor may appeal to a lot of modern viewers. Of course, as a transplant from Germany, Lang still had to make it abundantly clear that he was not on the side of the Nazis. At least this time, not all German characters are treacherous.
A bigger difference from the novel is the removal of an amnesia arc. Again, I approve: That may work well in a literary format, but on screen, we expect more plot simplicity. There's already a considerable web in play, with some elements difficult but not impossible to follow. (Might I say that whatever Greene thinks of mental disorders, he has a thing for faked physical disabilities.)
At times, MoF approaches a dreamlike, or should I say nightmarish, cinematic quality, with artistically recurring themes. I'm certainly not the first viewer to connect it with Hitchcock, for reasons beyond the hero's initial unwitting entanglement and eventual happy romance. There's even a modicum of comic relief, not least from Sanford.
It may not be the best from Lang or Greene, nor does it match the best from Hitch, but it's solid stuff fit to hold its own against contemporary Hollywood hits. See it when you want 87 minutes of classic noir that doesn't depress you.
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