Masterful Movie

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Its World War II and those Nazi night raids are driving the British country folk balmy. When a postman is injured and rushed into surgery, he looks suspiciously at one of the doctors and one of the nurses taking on his case whom he recognizes. The next thing you know, he's gone onto that great post office in the sky and the entire staff is under suspicion for deliberately causing his death. One of the nurses (Judy Campbell) is extremely jealous of colleague Rosamund John and doctor Leo Genn (whom she discovers kissing), and at a hospital function, she denounces the postman's killer without mentioning a name, only hinting about hidden evidence that will unleash their identity. She too ends up dead, leading to a showdown with the five suspects and Inspector Cockrill (Alastair Sim), a know-it-all detective who is in for a few surprises of his own. The Inspector is the film's narrator and reveals enough clues to get the intrigue started.Tension builds at the party during a dance to "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" which later becomes as dramatic a theme music as Alfred Hitchcock used with "The Merry Widow Waltz" in "Shadow of a Doubt" and "The Strawberry Blonde" in "Strangers on a Train". The film can be rather slow in spots, but as the surprises explode, the film just gets more and more amusing. It is astonishing to note that the film seems technically advanced beyond its release year as some British films tended to seem compared to the studio controlled product in Hollywood. Director Sidney Gilliat doesn't give us a slower paced narrative for no reason; Every detail is explored. The film's photography is outstanding. Other than Trevor Howard, Alastair Sim and Leo Genn, the cast may not be familiar to a lot of American viewers, but everybody is fine and each of them have great moments to shine. Stick with the film and you'll be greatly amused by the twists and turns in the plot that you don't see coming. Sim, best known to American audiences for perhaps the most popular version of "A Christmas Carol", plays a role I thought might be a continuing character in other films, but I was mistaken. He seemed very comfortable in the part for this to have been a regular role for him. He has a great final surprise and his response to it is ingenious.

Even the presence of master thespians Leo Genn and Trevor Howard can't solve this 1946 film,which was nothing more than a rather cheap take-off on Alfred Hitchcock's types of films.Mayhem seems to break out at a remote British hospital when a patient dies suddenly and a nurse who realized this was murder soon follows him.Everyone concerned are counted as suspects. The ending is ridiculous with carbon dioxide the culprit, used by the killer instead of oxygen. The real murderer is briefly psychoanalyzed. That's what's needed for this film.Alastair Dim is sent in to investigate this madness. By film's end, he has erred and submits his resignation, which he hopes shall be accepted. This film's makers should have submitted theirs as well.

I only have a very brief review for this one, as most of the details are in the mystery and the plot and most of those details are spoilers. This is a rich and whimsical British mystery, the type popular with fans of Agatha Christie, for instance. It's set during the German blitz of Great Britain during World War II, and Gilliat backdrops the rather personal mystery held within an insular community with the Pavlovian terror of the bombings and the issue of world affairs in the heart of many a character's motivations. Otherwise, the motive behind the movie is kind of a let down, but don't let that stop you from enjoying the fun behind "whodunnit". The movie really gets started when Alastair Sim arrives as the quirky, wry investigator. He's a scene-stealer in every way, surrounded as he his by the usual in characters with strong personalities too involved in their own ways to be more than just a little truthful.--PolarisDiB

Green For Danger is about a pair of murders that take place in a British hospital in post World War II Great Britain. One was a patient that died on the operating table, the other is of one of the attending nurses who says that she has evidence that the patient's death was indeed foul play. Unfortunately she's stabbed to death before revealing her evidence.Scotland Yard sends Inspector Alastair Sim to investigate and he's got a closed set of operating suspects that include hospital staff, Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Leo Genn, and Rosamund John. What could it all be about?As is usual the motive is kind of far out, but as Sim says we're not dealing with a normal functioning mind here. Sim is the real show in Green For Danger, he's a British version of Lieutenant Columbo thirty years ahead of his time. He's constantly getting under foot and a real annoyance to the hospital staff. But he has a knack for ferreting out information.Of course he does in the end find out the who and the why, but Sim does manage to fumble the arrest of his perpetrator in an unusual way. But as he says in the end it wasn't his best day on the job.For those who like the droll characters portrayed by Alastair Sim on the screen, Green For Danger is a must for you.