THE FALLEN IDOL II – Ralph Richardson, Michèle Morgan

Ralph Richardson in The Fallen Idol

THE FALLEN IDOL Review: Part I
Things are cleared up before the end, after a number of plot contrivances — not the least of which is the mediocre police investigation. Compounding matters, The Fallen Idol offers subpar acting (Henrey and Morgan phone in their performances), stereotyped characters (e.g., the cops and a Cockney prostitute), and some bad cinematography by Georges Périnal. Again, it’s not that the images are in themselves bad; it’s just that they are inaptly applied to the situations in which the characters find themselves. For instance, angles are skewed in an attempt to add tension to banal scenes, an approach made worse by William Alwyn’s melodramatic musical score, which stands in stark contrast [...]

THE FALLEN IDOL d: Carol Reed

The Fallen Idol (1948)
Direction: Carol Reed
Screenplay: Graham Greene, from his short story "The Basement Room"; additional dialogue by Lesley Storm and William Templeton
Cast: Ralph Richardson, Bobby Henrey, Michèle Morgan, Sonia Dresdel, Denis O’Dea, Jack Hawkins, Walter Fitzgerald
 

Michèle Morgan, Ralph Richardson in 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 Charlton Heston biopic of Michelangelo, The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). True, 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 [...]

Best Films – 1948

Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan in Letter from an Unknown Woman
FILM
Anna Karenina
d: Julien Duvivier; scr: Jean Anouilh, Guy Morgan, Julien Duvivier
Cry of the City
d: Robert Siodmak; scr: Richard Murphy
Johnny Belinda
d: Jean Negulesco; scr: Irmgard von Cube, Allen Vincent
Key Largo
d: John Huston; scr: Richard Brooks, John Huston
Ladri di biciclette / The Bicycle Thief
d: Vittorio De Sica; scr: Oreste Biancoli, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci, Gherardo Gherardi, Gerardo Guerrieri, Cesare Zavattini
Letter from an Unknown Woman
d: Max Ophüls; scr: Howard Koch
Portrait of Jennie
d: William Dieterle; scr: Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, Leonard Berrovici
State of the Union
d: Frank Capra; scr: Anthony Veiller, Myles Connolly
The Winslow Boy
d: Anthony Asquith; scr: Terence Rattigan, Anatole de Grunwald
 

Joan [...]