The Assassin / The Venetian Bird (1952)
The Venetian Bird / The Assassin (1952)
DVD5 | VIDEO_TS | PAL | 4:3 | 720x576 | 6400 kbps | 4.3Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps
01:35:00 | UK | Mystery, Thriller
DVD5 | VIDEO_TS | PAL | 4:3 | 720x576 | 6400 kbps | 4.3Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps
01:35:00 | UK | Mystery, Thriller
Private detective Edward Mercer goes to Venice at the request of a French insurance company to locate a brave Italian whom they wish to reward for his part in the rescue of an Allied airman shot down during the war. At least, that is what Mercer thinks as he steps off the steamer at the Piazza San Marco and is greeted by a smiling street photographer, Cassana. Mercer makes his way to a shop and finds his first contact dead from a knife stab, and the trail leads him to Adrianna. He faces danger from police chief Spaloni and also from a group of foreign patriots, led by Count Borian and Lieutenant Longo, who want to use him as a stool-pigeon for a planned Coup d'Etat. A hectic race across the roof tops, high above the great square, brings Mercer to grips against his unknown enemy…
Director: Ralph Thomas
Cast: Richard Todd, Eva Bartok, John Gregson, George Coulouris, Margot Grahame, Walter Rilla, John Bailey, Sid James, Martin Boddey, Michael Balfour, Sydney Tafler, Miles Malleson, Eric Pohlmann, David Hurst, Raymond Young, Ferdy Mayne, Jill Clifford, Eileen Way, Toni Lucarda, Janice Kane, Meier Tzelniker, Victor Harrington, Marianne Stone
The Assassin / The Venetian Bird (1952)
The Assassin / The Venetian Bird (1952)
The beautiful city of Venice, with its ancient buildings, its serpentine canals and its aura of medieval mischief that combine to give it a fine dramatic air, is used as a colorful backdrop for a mild little tale of mystery told in the British film, "The Assassin," which arrived at the Sutton yesterday. As is often the case when routine stories are set against dominant locales, the drama is shadowed by the scenery, but the latter is almost worth the show.
The mere shot of flocks of startled pigeons rising wildly from St. Mark's Square as the great bell is struck in the clock-tower imparts a more stimulating thrill than the chase of the villain over rooftops that brings the standard story to a close. And a few shots of gondolas swarming in the Grand Canal in a mammoth aquacade are more exciting than all the business of skullduggery photographed within closed doors.
For the screen play contrived by Victor Canning for this production of Betty E. Box in a strictly conventional complication of mystery and murderous intrigue, and the wallop it packs is as nothing to the wallop of the rich Venetian scene. Although Richard Todd makes a trim and earnest private agent on the trail of a man who is sought for an act of heroism in the war and turns out to be a crook, and although John Gregson, as the latter, and Eva Bartok, as his wife, are able foils, the heat and excitement they develop is of a flatly familiar sort.
One obvious misfortune is the denseness of the plot at the start of the film—so dense that it generates tedium before it excites concern. In this connection, also, the confusion caused by many Italian names—the effort of keeping them all straight—is a further inducement to ennui. A slight acceleration in the tempo and a bit of violent action towards the end are of sufficient amusement to top it off with a mild explosive burst.
The incidental difficulty of a virtually all-British cast—including Margot Grahame, Martin Boddey, Walter Rilla and Sidney James, not to mention the American George Coulouris—in attempting to affect Italian airs and assorted Italian accents is a secondary disconcertion, too.
But there's usually Venice in the background—beautiful, serene and urbane—to captivate the interest when the action is out-of-doors. And Director Ralph Thomas has got from it as much atmosphere as he could. His major hitch was that the story and the setting did not blend. One is perceptibly fictitious, the other is stunningly real.
IMDb
The Assassin / The Venetian Bird (1952)
The Assassin / The Venetian Bird (1952)
