Highly Overrated But Still Good

Fantastic!

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Director: GERALD THOMAS. Screenplay: Francis Durbridge, based on his TV serial, "The Brass Candlestick". Photography: Otto Heller. Film editor: Peter Boita. Music composed and conducted by Stanley Black. Art director: Jack Stevens. Wardrobe supervisor: Vi Murray. Make-up: Jill Carpenter. Hair styles: Marjorie Whittle. Production manager: Basil Keys. Assistant director: William Hill. Sound editor: Richard Marden. Sound recording: Len Page. Producer: Peter Rogers.A Beaconsfield Production for Romulus. Released in the U.S.A. through Kassler Films. New York opening at the Art Theatre: 15 April 1959. U.K. release through Independent Film Distributors/British Lion: 22 September 1957. Australian release through 20th Century- Fox: 25 September 1958. 7,560 feet. 84 minutes. (Available on an excellent ITV DVD). U.S. release title: the Circle.SYNOPSIS: A German actress is found dead in a doctor's apartment. Circumstantial evidence points to the doc's guilt.COMMENT: A complicated thriller that is none too thrillingly directed, and none too thrillingly written either — thanks to poor characterization, flat dialogue and a somewhat absurd plot.Nonetheless, the movie is of more than passing interest for the mystery movie connoisseur. Thanks to his radio and TV excursions, Durbridge was enormously popular in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. He created Paul Temple, who not only starred in novels but on the radio and (to a much lesser degree) on the big screen in three Butcher quota quickies in which he was played by John Bentley.

Gerald Thomas directed five ho-hum films in the nineteen fifties before Carry On, Sergeant struck a chord with the brain-dead pre-Multiplexers of the day and this was one of them. Raymond Chandler famously said that the easiest murders to solve are the ones that someone tried too hard with and such is the case here. What we have is a sort of David Mamet scenario lacking Mamet's skill. In the early stages there is a throwaway moment that will prove crucial later. Having met at London airport as a favour to a friend a German actress previously unknown to him, John Mills attempts to light a cigarette in the car en route to London only to find his lighter doesn't work, whereupon the actress offers him a book of matches and tells him to keep them. These are two STRANGERS, remember so in order for this to work the actress must know in advance that 1) Mills smokes at all, 2) he will elect to smoke during the car journey, 3) that he owns a lighter and not matches of his own and 4) that his lighter will fail to work. If stuff like this doesn't bother you none of the rest will, like, for example, a scene towards the end with Mills in his flat talking to his fiancé. He takes a phone call which necessitates him keeping a rendez-vous but rejects the fiancé's offer to go with him. Instead he tosses her a bunch of keys saying 'these are the keys to my flat, let yourself in and wait for me there'. Quite a trick when they are actually IN his flat at the time. On the credit side there are some nice nostalgic views of a long-vanished London that match the long-vanished logic.

This interesting - if flawed - Hitchcock wannabe, unexpectedly delights in the period snapshots of London circa 1957/8. The embankment / London Zoo / 'London Airport', together with lots of cigarettes and social etiquette. Mills is accomplished in the role of the consultant/surgeon thrown into a game of 'cat and mouse', even if the dénouement is a little corny.In addition to the cameos by Lionel Jeffries, and a relatively young Wilfred Hyde-White, Roland Culver cuts a familiar, yet enigmatic, figure as the all-seeing, all-knowing Inspector - far better than many similar roles in some Hitchcock thrillers.

"The Vicious Circle" is a very unknown British mystery story. Like many Hitchcock movies, it's about a man who is being accused of a crime he didn't commit, and does everything he can to prove it. This time it's a Dr. Latimer (John Mills), who finds a murdered German actress from his floor. As an honest man, the doctor calls Scotland Yard, which turns out to be a big mistake...There's really nothing special in this little movie. Still, watching the film is an entertaining way to pass time. I enjoyed following the plot development. Fine actors are a plus.