THE FALLEN IDOL Review d: Carol Reed

THE FALLEN IDOL (1948)

Direction: Carol Reed

Cast: Ralph Richardson, Bobby Henrey, Michèle Morgan, Sonia Dresdel, Denis O'Dea, Jack Hawkins, Walter Fitzgerald

Screenplay: Graham Greene, from his short story "The Basement Room"; additional dialogue by Lesley Storm and William Templeton

Oscar Movies

Michèle Morgan, Ralph Richardson, The Fallen Idol

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:

The 1948 drama The Fallen Idol is the third film I've seen by British filmmaker Carol Reed. I'd previously watched the dreadful Oscar-winning musical Oliver! (1968) and the stolid biopic The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), featuring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo. I've also seen The Third Man, the 1949 thriller attributed to Reed, though I've always hedged upon taking the stance that it was Reed's film alone and not an Orson Welles film merely bearded by Reed.

Well, after watching The Fallen Idol, which directly preceded The Third Man, I can tell you that I have no doubts that the bulk of the latter film was a Welles project that used the functional journeyman Reed as a front against the American blacklist.

This is not because The Fallen Idol is a bad film. In fact, it's merely a serviceable adaptation of Graham Greene's short story "The Basement Room." Only a few filmmaking techniques found in The Fallen Idol augur the grandiosity of their use in the later film (also based on Greene's work), which was so Wellesian that to contemplate that Reed suddenly soared to greatness is to ignore verities of the way art is created and the way artists work and mature.

Now, the two later Reed films I mention above differ from The Third Man in that they are in color, in different genres, and made many years later; one could thus argue that Reed may have simply "lost his touch." But given that The Fallen Idol was made a year earlier, is in black and white, and is based upon a work by the same writer, the comparisons between the two films are apt — and the difference in quality is stark.

Another question: Why would Reed agree to be a front for Welles? Well, Reed wanted to break into the American market. Additionally, Reed shared political sympathies with and an artistic admiration for Welles, and got locked into a career track that led to greater financial success and recognition even as the need for his artistic talents diminished. If you were a man who recognized his limits and had a chance to help an idol whose techniques you aped in exchange for personal success, would you refuse? Or would you grab the chance and then deny the obvious to your grave?

Let's start with a brief synopsis of The Fallen Idol, from a screenplay by Greene, with "additional dialogue" provided by Lesley Storm and William Templeton: the French Ambassador in London has to go abroad to fetch his ailing wife. His young son, Phillipe (Bobby Henrey, in one of the worst acting jobs by a child in a major film release), is left in the care of the Embassy's butler, Mr. Baines (Ralph Richardson, almost a dead ringer for Kevin Spacey). Phillipe adores Baines — the "idol" of the title — for the butler has told the boy tall tales of his adventures in Africa. Baines, however, has a harridan wife (Sonia Dresdel) who loathes Phillipe and his pet snake, and bullies her husband at every turn.

Baines seeks refuge in an affair with a much younger, prettier stenographer at the embassy, Julie (Michèle Morgan). One day, while the hyperactive Phillipe is running amok outside his home, he sees Baines and Julie at a café commiserating that she is ending things. The butler convinces the boy to keep his secret about meeting with his "niece." He had promised to leave his wife for the gullible typist, yet cannot muster the courage to ask for a divorce.

Mrs. Baines finds out about the affair by weaseling Phillipe. She then pretends to go out of town in order to spy on the husband. It is here, in the darkened embassy, that some of the most Wellesian camera angles and shots occur, which have led many to assume that Reed's talents did in fact develop into the greatness of The Third Man.

But even in those sequences, one sees only slight skewing; the camera is never as interactive or daring as in the later film or in other Welles features, from Citizen Kane to The Lady from Shanghai. In short, rather than the camera movements in The Fallen Idol being an earlier version of what would flower in The Third Man, they come off as mere apings of Wellesian techniques that would be employed in the later film by the original creator himself.

Following Mrs. Baines' accidental death, Phillipe assumes that the butler has committed murder. The boy runs out into the wet, cold street, and here we see the paving stones glitter, though not nearly as effectively as those in the Vienna of The Third Man. The scene, in fact, lacks drama — and there are no great shadows from which a Harry Lime can emerge.