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Boccherini's String Quintet clinches the debt to Capra's Lady for a Day. The castle of Victorian memorabilia is a cul-de-sac by the railroad, the wizened widow (Katie Johnson) rattles within, not as addled as she looks. She seeks boarders and finds the criminal mastermind posing as a professor, who's teased with Langian silhouettes and Hitchcockian steam before materializing at her doorstep like a bundled-up Nosferatu, one of Alec Guinness' most inspired caricatures. The rest of the gang gather disguised as amateur musicians, fiddles in hand: The jittery Teddy Boy (Peter Sellers), the counterfeit major (Cecil Parker), "the temperamental one" (Herbert Lom) and the beefy palooka (Danny Green). The payroll heist is concurrent with The Killing and in both cases there's "the human element" to throw off the clockwork scheme, namely the elderly witness hosting a tea party. "Simply try for one hour to behave like gentlemen." A mysterious expressionism of greens and blues, modulating toward blacks by Alexander Mackendrick in his final bit of Ealing mordancy. The high-angled camera ponders the cozy neighborhood as if under glass, a genteel routine at fussing to the police station and forgetting umbrellas for the old Britannia that just won't die. The Lodger is the feint, the sheer calm overlooking the astringent slapstick is certainly appreciated by Polanski, cf. The Fearless Vampire Killers. "A spark of decency remains," all she has to do is go about her business while the sinister forces bump each other off. The runaway parrot, the loot in the cello case, the body in the barrow. "It's long past my bedtime, I've had a most exhausting day." Americans brought wit to the fable and Americans would take it away, vide the Coens' remake. With Jack Warner, Frankie Howerd, and Philip Stainton.
--- Fernando F. Croce |