An attempt to repeat the success of The Third Man (although from a book which pre-dated it) with Orson Welles as another dead, mysterious much talked about figure who doesn’t appear until well into the film – the thing is this time he’s really dead, a big time financier who winds up in a golf links with a bullet in him, and when he appears it’s only in flashback. Like Harry Lime the dead man has a lad friend (in this case wife) who the hero falls in love with – but he’s not a friend. He’s Michael Wilding, an amateur detective and artist, who investigates for a newspaper.
Wilding does his airy thing well enough but Margaret Lockwood, who you think would be ideal as a possibly murderous wife, isn’t very good. Better is John McCallum as the dead man’s secretary, but Orson Welles wears a silly nose and overacts, and the ending makes the whole thing into a shaggy dog tale.
Wilding does his airy thing well enough but Margaret Lockwood, who you think would be ideal as a possibly murderous wife, isn’t very good. Better is John McCallum as the dead man’s secretary, but Orson Welles wears a silly nose and overacts, and the ending makes the whole thing into a shaggy dog tale.
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