The Fallen Idol

source: The Fallen Idol

In comparison to "The Third Man" and the earlier "Odd Man Out", this film of Carol Reed's comes across as a minor work. The camera is restrained; there is no real effort at visual complexity. The story is simple and devoid of all those layers the above two films have. The story is however a clinically effective one, solidly filmed and well played by the cast. I can see perhaps why people may take to it more than "Odd Man Out", although I maintain that "Odd Man Out" is a more fascinating film and a greater one as a whole. Part of "The Fallen Idol"'s trouble is that, as Pauline Kael says, things are too understated and muted. There is not quite the dramatic frisson; everything is softly revealed and perhaps not shaded enough. The filming is not quite staid or dull, but it is when compared to "The Third Man" and "Odd Man Out". Perhaps summing this up, there doesn't seem to be enough directorial vision to the film. There is a general theme of the difference in child and adult perspectives to events, which does pay dividends, but nothing on a great scale. The ending - possibly a cop-out, possibly not... I can't quite make up my mind about it; it makes things much more cosy, loses the blackly comic tragic angle, but comes up with some very deft touches of dramatic ironic. The film may not exactly astound, but it is really a very creditable project. This is emphasised by the finely judged playing of the great Richardson as Mr Baines, the engaging child actor Bobby Henrey - from whose perspective we often see the action - and Sonia Dresdel, playing Mrs Baines with a peculiarly prissy, unbalanced malice. A fine performance; a little more animated than Richardson, who is nevertheless affecting in his slow, coiling, slightly askew respectability. Michele Morgan isn't especially interesting; a shame as her part is a bit of a weak link; a very standard character rather lacking in nuance or interest. The romance between Richardson and Morgan is only passably conveyed; a sign of British cinema's reticence perhaps... Powell and Pressburger or Lean - "Brief Encounter" I am of course thinking of, specifically - may have handled this aspect better. Maybe it is the actors or the script that add to this void of impression; "Odd Man Out" and "The Third Man" have very satisfying strands of illuminating romanticism in them. At times it is a bleak romanticism that pervades these films; "The Fallen Idol" offers only coy hints, and not a great amount of chemistry. Possibly this can be put down to the film being poised, much of the time, from a child's eye view of the world. A major thing that lets down the film is its very inconsequential opening section; it struggles to really draw the viewer in. The pace does pick up admirably later on though, with the cleverness of the script becoming ever more apparent. While the screenplay is nowhere near the sprawling brilliance of "The Third Man", Greene does an effective job in dramatising the story. What with this well-judged if perhaps a little unspectacular screenplay here from Greene, and the astonishing flourishes of Robert Krasker's camerawork in "Odd Man Out", one sees a few pieces slotting into place for the trio's work [along with other players, of course] on the coming "The Third Man". The ending brings the film much closer to conventionality; while the script is very clever in spinning its tale, the film doesn't have a maverick mark upon it, which one has come to expect from Reed. Yes, the last shots are very nice, and well done, but things very much veer towards normality, rather than the movingly ironic, as they have been promising to. "The Fallen Idol" is very much a laudable, impressive film. A small-scale winner, but by no means a Carol Reed film that astonishes and dazzles the eye and the mind. Rating:- ****/*****

I'm amazed at the time of writing this, there are only 33 comments and 1700 votes. How is it that more people haven't seen this movie. Another classic pairing of Directot Carol Reed with Writer Graham Greene - who would later go on to even more success with their collaboration in "The Third Man". While I wouldn't rate this movie quite as high as TTM, it is very good film in its own right. This is a tale as seen from a child's eyes in a very grown-up world with very adult issues. This is captured superbly in the cinematography that uses low angles at child height and looking up. This is also a story of secrets and lies - and so the camera is very effective in changing shots and angles to always give them impression that others are spying or eavesdropping. This is also conveyed very effectively with the set - which is filmed substantially withing the Embassy residence which is a huge, lavish mansion. It has many levels and staircases - none so impressive as the ornate, curving main staircase. The camera also makes good use of close-ups and wide angle shots. Often times, movies with stick with one or the other. I think it helped keep it interesting. The characters were all well cast. I especially liked Ralph Richardson as the butler whom the boy, Phillipe (Bobby Henry), idolizes. Richardson has just the right balance of decorum and warmth to make you understand why the boy, who is starved for attention, follows after him. He has a very smooth speaking voice that is pleasant to listen to. He reminds me a lot of Kevin Spacey in his appearance and demeanor (especially in "Pay it Forward"). I think the director did a great job of eliciting a good performance out of the then 8 year old Henry. I heard that the director's secret was not to have the child respond to an actors lines - but to que the child himself in a different take. I think the precociousness and spontaneity of the child were captured quite well with this. There are quite a few memorable scenes - hide and seek in the dark, cavernous mansion; the boy running through the dark London streets with all the alleys, archways, wet streets and glowing lanterns; the paper airplane flying from the upper balcony and circling all the way down, slowly, to land at a detectives feet; the detective questioning Baines at the top of the stairs, all the while the tilted window is visible in the background. The music changes pace with the story, and at times it was frantic and frenetic to match the suspense and fear of the story. I felt it was used quite effectively. The story addresses themes of loneliness, betrayal, secrecy, lies, and loss of innocence in a plot that kept my interest from beginning to end. My only complaint is that at times the dialogue was difficult to understand with the clip, British accents. I wish this had been offered in closed captions so I could catch some missed conversations.

A little boy (Bobby Henry) thinks he saw a murder in "The Fallen Idol," a 1948 film directed by Carol Reed from a Graham Greene screenplay. You really can't get much better than that. Phillipe is the son of the French ambassador to England and his good buddy in the large place where they live is the butler Baines (Ralph Richardson). Baines and his shrew of a wife (Sonia Dresdel) run the place, and the action takes place while both the ambassador and his wife are away. Being an only child, Phillipe has a vivid imagination and is also very attached to Baines, whom he follows one day to a coffee shop. There, Baines is in deep conversation with a woman he introduces as his niece Julie (Michelle Morgan). In actuality, she's his girlfriend, and she and Baines are discussing whether or not he can get a divorce from his wife. When Mrs. Baines leaves to visit her aunt, Julie comes over to the house to spend time with Baines and Phillipe. Just one small problem - Mrs. B knows something is up and is still in the house. When she winds up dead at the bottom of the stairs, Baines falls under suspicion, and Phillipe is afraid Baines killed her. This is a beautifully crafted film about the mind of a child and about secrets and lies. Baines tells Phillipe secrets and lies, Julie tells Phillipe secrets, Mrs. Baines tells Phillipe secrets, Phillipe can't keep a secret, so lies ensue. When the inspector (Jack Hawkins) shows up, it becomes exhausting all around. One of the biggest stars of the film is the camera, which takes us down a London street as a little boy runs in the dark and rain; up a long staircase; through a game of hide and seek with covered furniture; the boy's view of the busy household; and most especially the precious final shot. The magnificent Ralph Richardson portrays the complex Baines perfectly - unhappily married, in love with the beautiful Julie, afraid of his nasty wife, efficient at his job and fond of Phillipe, who is at this point clearly in the way. Michelle Morgan is believable as Julie, a kind young woman - these aren't two nasty, conniving people, just two people in love who don't know whether to go forward or separate. Bobby Henry is an excellent Phillipe. He's not sweet and adorable, but we don't want Mrs. Baines to be mean to him; he blows every secret all to hell and doesn't lie very well; he shows up at inappropriate moments; he makes the wrong assumptions - but we feel for his terror and confusion. If he'd been cute, it would have made Baines and Julie seem more exploitive than they were. It also would have made Mrs. Baines seem even meaner - but she's mean enough. One of the best films to come out of British cinema, and more proof of the greatness of Carol Reed. A must see.

Was there ever a more civilized treatment of infidelity than this British suspenser. Ralph Richardson's butler Baines is the very last word in polished civility and stiff upper lip no matter how extreme the provocation. Yet he's so unfailingly kind and considerate to the boy Phillipe that he's among the most admirable of transgressors. The bond between the lonely son of the French ambassador and the hen-pecked English butler is memorably touching and the emotional heart of the film. Director Carol Reed has basically a single set to work with. But it's a great one with the sweeping staircase, high domed ceiling, and checkerboard tiles, all keeping the eye entertained at the same time the sinister events unfold. Those events are driven by poor Sonia Dresdel who has the thankless role of the cruel wife and housekeeper Mrs. Baines that she plays to the hilt. You just know from the start that Phillipe's pet garter snake, MacGregor, is doomed in her bleak household. In fact, the screenplay has loaded the deck by making her such an unsympathetic figure. Who can blame Baines for his covert rendezvous with the lovely Julie (Michelle Morgan) when his shrewish wife remains in the empty embassy waiting to pounce. What really distinguishes the movie is its skill at viewing adult actions through the eyes of the child. Thus, instead of a conventional two-shot close-up of Baines and Julie in intimate conversation, Reed gives us a three-shot from the perspective of Phillipe as he watches them. We may know what's up with them, but we also share the boy's puzzlement over a world he has yet to grow into. We share that perspective throughout, which is not only an unusual one, but visually reinforces the touching bond between the child of the elite and the highly polished commoner. It also turns the emotional climax (not the dramatic) into a memorably revealing one-- a rite of passage, as it were. Anyway, in my little book, the movie qualifies as a genuine classic, placing Carol Reed in the same Pantheon as contemporary British masters Hitchcock and Michael Powell. Once you see it, you don't forget it.

"The Fallen Idol" builds on a classic situation of English children's literature--the lonely rich kid from overseas in the big house left with hired caregivers-- to create a masterful suspense tale that deftly examines truths and half-truths, lies and white lies from the boy's confused perspective. Based on Graham Greene's short story "The Basement Room", the film builds on the look of Hitchcock's "Rebecca", with a house as visually significant as Manderlay, plus fraught with Lillian Hellman's sophisticated view of childhood as in "These Three". Key is not just Georges Périnal's enthralling story, but the stunning direction by Carol Reed in how he uses gorgeous black and white cinematography from both a memorable interior and a London that ranges from scary night to a misleadingly bright daylight that is equally full of secrets, as seen in a new 35 MM print at NYC's Film Forum. The beautiful production design is dominated by a gorgeous staircase in the ambassador's residence that has to rank with one of the all time movie centerpieces as in "Gone With The Wind", and is as central for the first and last third of the film as the Rear Window in another Hitchcock film. Reed has the camera go up and down those heavily symbolic stairs as a shared link from the main floors that are the busy public areas, down to the basement servant quarters then up and up to the private residential areas, with overlooking balconies and windows that are key for spying on each level. The staircase sets up several dramatic events (adding layers to the film's title), climaxing in a notable scene of the incredibly tense voyage of a child's innocent-seeming paper airplane that carries a significant clue slowly, slowly traversing that vertical no-man's/everyman's land from the top to the bottom, as we hold our breath where it will land. Throughout the film, the complex world of adult relationships and interactions is seen through the eyes of a child (the wonderfully natural, lively, lisping Bobby Henrey - who now lives in Connecticut and did a Q & A at the Film Forum I didn't attend) so that childish activities take on ironic or double meanings of freedom or dread, between appearances and reality, from a good night story, to a game of hide and seek, to a picnic, to running away, to an idyll at the zoo that one would assume inspired Rowling for a key scene in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". Throughout the film, the boy constantly misunderstands what he is seeing - sometimes he sees the truth, sometimes he doesn't, sometimes he only sees part of the truth, as the adults alternate in advising him to lie or don't lie. The young Ralph Richardson is absolutely marvelous as he switches from father substitute to hen-pecked husband (Sonia Dresdel as his wife recalls Agnes Moorhead), to relaxed lover, to efficient butler. While this new print revival is being distributed as a forgotten masterpiece, my parents vividly remembered seeing it first run in their neighborhood Brooklyn movie theater and that it was quite popular. I presume that the same team's next work on the masterpiece "The Third Man" overshadowed this gem in film history, but also perhaps because this film doesn't end on quite the cynicism that a contemporary audience expects from their work.

Even though this is a well made movie regarding direction and cinematography, I found the plot to be lacking in depth, and the characters are not very likable. Not likable enough as to care what happens to them anyways. Philip, the little boy that is the protagonist, is one of the most annoying kids ever captured on film. He is exactly how Dennis the Menace would look if you were to put him in a film noir. I found my self thinking that I would never want to have kids on more than one occasion during this film ! As the entire plot revolved around the ill-mannered little devil, i found it to be very very thin. I wouldn't bother watching this film if I knew what it was about. Much better "film noir" movies out there...

Lies, sometimes, are an act of kindness. Many times I hasten to add. The imagination of a lonely child is ignited by a meek man in love. The man, as played by the extraordinary Ralph Richardson, is a mass of contradictions and yet we understand him. Married to a shrew and in love with Michele Morgan no less. Carol Reed is not a director that comes immediately to mind when one lists the greatest directors of all time, but in my book, is right up there with the very best. No other director has been able to bring Graham Green to the screen with its spirit so gloriously intact. Guilt and fear as riveting entertainment. Suspenseful, funny and beautiful to look at. Go try to top that.

When the great directors of film are named these days, the incomparable Carol Reed is rarely mentioned. He has been completely surpassed in the public esteem by his British contemporary David Lean. After the success of Reed's English films, a period which began in 1940 with the coal-mining film "The Stars Look Down" and ended with "The Outcast of the Islands" in 1954, the director was discovered by the big Hollywood studios; he went on to direct a number of big-budgeted Technicolor international productions –-"Olivier," "The Agony and the Ecstasy," and "Trapeze"—all of which he handled with consummate professionalism, but somehow their box-office success unfairly diminished his reputation with the critics. He is perhaps best remembered today for "The Third Man," which many people erroneously think Orson Welles directed. Although Reed's early films were shot in London films studios and on location all around the word, they remain quintessentially British in understated mood and attack --B&W films made in collaboration with the best expatriate talent that had gathered in London during the war years. ("The Fallen Idol" is photographed by the French cinematographer Perinal, the Jugoslavian editor Hafenrichter, and the Hungarian set designer Vincent Korda.) Reed at his best has the unique ability to portray the most complex of human relationships with voices lowered; witness how masterfully he directs the detectives and suspects in the final reels of this superb film.

The Fallen Idol (AKA: The Lost Illusion) is directed by Carol Reed and adapted to a screenplay by Graham Green from his own short story called The Basement Room. Additional dialogue was scripted by Lesley Storm and William Templeton, the music is by William Alwyn and Georges Périnal is the cinematographer. It stars Ralph Richardson, Bobby Henrey, Michèle Morgan, Sonia Dresdel and Denis O'Dea. Film is told thru the eyes of Phillipe (Henrey), the young son of a diplomat living at the French Embassy in London. With his parents often away from home, Phillipe has latched onto the family butler, Baines (Richardson), for friendship and guidance. Baines regales the boy with fanciful tales of adventure, but in truth Baines himself is unhappy, stuck in a loveless marriage to the shrewish Mrs. Baines (Dresdel). When Bobby happens upon Baines in the company of a young woman named Julie (Morgan), it thrusts the youngster into a world he doesn't understand, and when a tragedy occurs, Bobby is in danger of shattering the friendship between Baines and himself. The first of Graham Greene's literary works to be directed by the great Carol Reed, The Fallen Idol took some time to come out of The Third Man's shadow and be heralded in its own right. What transpires over 95 minutes is a tight psychological thriller that leaves a lasting image of childhood confusion, disillusionment and the innocence that's lost. Throw into the mix adult secrets, human conundrums and a gripping mystery investigation at its peak, and it's not hard to see why it's such a well revered picture. It's also a film that thrives on dialogue, again not surprising given that Green himself always said it was the best film adaptation of his work, while some of the deep-focus photography from Périnal adds real atmosphere to the proceedings. Richardson is superb, and he leads a hugely effective cast, where Dresdel is scarily witch like and Henrey, plucked from nowhere to star as the naive boy, paints an indelible portrait of a child struggling to comprehend the mysterious world of the adults around him. In support there is quality thespians such as Bernard Lee and Jack Hawkins. The ending is notably different to that in the original story, and no doubt about it, the original ending would have garnered a different reaction from many. But Greene was happy to change his own source for the screen, so if it's good enough for him then it surely is good enough for us? Certainly time has been kind to The Fallen Idol, it's Hitchcockian feel blended with literary smarts has made it a lasting favourite of critics and fans alike. 8.5/10