The Man Who Finally Died

A call out of the blue sends the British Stanley Baker to Bavaria to check out the news that his father, whom he believed had died years before, has actually just recently died. Now if that isn't news enough, when he arrives, he begins to draw hints from the goings-on of the estate that his father is indeed alive still and being hid from him. Of course, everybody (including Peter Cushing!) Insists that's not the case, and some people, when they discover his identity, are not pleased to see him. The audience, if they followed along so far, begin to either go in one of two directions, either on the something else or to sit and take in every visual and every word to figure it all out. I'm glad I chose the second option because while I was perplexed and confused a lot of the time, when it was all wrapped up, I could honestly say, okay that made some sense. This certainly could have been a lot clearer in nature, but thanks to good performances and excellent production design and little hints dropped here and there to help the viewer along, I finally got back on track. Certainly not everybody is going to have that fortune, and had I not been prepared for such a overly intelligent narrative, I would have lost interest because I would have just felt too stupid to bother or too frustrated to care. At least it's better than a later equally complex post World War II drama, "The Holcroft Agreement" (1984), and very similar in themes. The ending is quite jarring.

Not only is THE MAN WHO FINALLY DIED the second movie where Niall MacGinnis has a gun drawn on a train during the climax following CURSE OF THE DEMON, but THE THIRD MAN has been knocked-off once again... And this time... despite a horribly intrusive, melodramatic harpsichord hammering like lightning following a horror film revelation... it's a pretty good effort as former German child now adult British citizen/jazz pianist Stanley Baker returns to Germany after getting a mysterious call about his father, who he thought was dead twenty-years ago, and is now dead again, only it happened a week earlier... And as this effective mystery thriller progresses, the dad, like Orson Welles's Harry Lime, could have been involved in some bad things, covered up by a doctor played by Peter Cushing (protecting widow Mai Zetterling and directed by Hammer's Quentin Lawrence, and having co-starred with Baker in VIOLENT PLAYGROUND), while also helping gorgeous ingenue Georgina Ward, whose father was buried in the same grave that, well... There are too many twists to count or spoil, but Baker, donning Ray Charles-like sunglasses even indoors, goes from place to place in his usual strongarm, no-nonsense fashion, only a bit more vulnerable, and deliberately confused, like the audience.

source: The Man Who Finally Died

One of the worst movies I ever had to endure. The labyrinthine plot wanders around Germany and it involves: German prisoners escaped from the USSR, the son of one of said soldiers emigrated to England and calling himself Newman a conspiracy involving a bunch of shady Germans characters a shouting, wildly overacting German police inspector (from his stance maybe an ex-SS), and an abominable, overloud, omnipresent and dated soundtrack, relying on a monstrous organ sound (so very 60s) and clashing cymbals underlying the tension.

Stanley Baker heads to the mountains of Germany. His father, whom he thought dead for twenty years, has been living there ever since he sent Baker as a boy to live with his mother's people as an Englishman named 'Newman' instead of 'Deutsch'.... it's all very symbolic, you see. Baker arrives just after the funeral, but was there a funeral? Was that his father? He doesn't think so, despite everything Doctor Peter Cushing, half-sister Mai Zetterling, and officials like Eric Portman say. For a while I thought I was looking at what would turn out to be a remake of THE THIRD MAN without Dutch Angles, pursuit through the sewers, or Orson Welles' whimsical musings on the cuckoo clock. Alas, it's a well performed Cold War drama in which everything turns out to be more important than it seemed, and yet less important to the characters involved, and so less important to me as a viewer. Perhaps there is something lacking in me that I cannot be moved by the fate of large masses of people, but care desperately about the individual and those close to me. It's not fair, I know. Yet as a Jew who lost about a third of his family in the Holocaust to an uncaring world, how am I supposed to feel sympathy when that world turns about and demands my sympathy? Well, I suppose some people care, even if they come to care too late, and some are just tired and ready to go into the darkness and be done with the whole charade. That's what's going on here, in an ornately overwritten movie. By the time Stanley Baker figured out what was going on, I was too exhausted to care. Perhaps the movie could have been edited a little tighter. Or perhaps that is what I am supposed to feel.

The problem with this film is that there is just much talk.Furthermore the pace is almost find real.Everything is an unexplained mystery,even why Stanley Baker,,with an eye complaint keeps on putting on and taking off his dark glasses.Some of the characterisation seem strange to say the least.Eric Portman plays the local police detective as if he was a member of the Gestapo.You expect him to order Nigel Green to give Stanley the once over with a piece of rubber hose.There is so little explanation of exactly what has happened that you struggle to make any sense of the film.The music tends to be far too intrusive.It is rather frustrating not to be able to understand the plot till the last 10 minutes.However even then the motivation of the characters remains unclear.

Many, if not most, of the reviews I encounter here state that "The Man Who Finally Died" is heavily influenced by - or even blatantly imitating - the Orson Welles' classic "The Third Man". Maybe so, but I haven't seen that one (yet) and therefore cannot judge. What I can say, however, is that the plot is great and incredibly absorbing, regardless of which film brought it first, and that this isn't a low-keyed type of rip-off but a stylish and polished British 60s effort with more than adequate production values and ditto acting performances. As a young boy, John Newman (born: Joachim Deutsch) fled from Nazi-Germany to England with his mother, and always assumed his father died in the War. 20 years later, he receives an anonymous call from Bavaria stating his father still alive, but when he arrives there, John learns - via his young stepmother he didn't knew existed - that his father passed away just a week ago from a stroke. Other people tell him his father died two years ago, and lots of other contradictions. When did Kurt Deutsch die? 20 years ago, 2 years ago, or just the week before? Or perhaps he's still alive, even? And since everybody is so reluctant to help or even inform John, who called and lured him to Bavaria? As you can tell, "The Man Who Finally Died" is a convoluted puzzle that requires full, constant, and devoted attention in order not to miss the tiniest clue or detail. It's extremely compelling, though, with a couple of ingenious and unforeseeable twists and broodingly uncanny atmosphere. The Bavaria settings and post-WWII references are excellent, and of course it's always a delight to watch fantastic British actors like Peter Cushing and Nigel Green. Lead star Stanley Baker certainly isn't my favorite performer, and quite often he looks very silly in this film, what with his unnecessary sunglasses and he's constant "I-don't-have-a-clue-what's-happening-here" facial expressions.

Did they hand out explanation booklets to audiences? I'm still not entirely clear who they buried at the end, given that "the man who finally died" was said to have died somewhere unknown in the mountains in flight from the Soviet Union.

Baker returns to Bavaria upon learning that his father, who he believed had died 20 years ago might still be alive. On arriving at the local town he is faced with resistance from all sides. Enjoyable British mystery which, whilst a bit dated, is a good story with various twists so you never know until the end who the baddies really are and what is going on. The cast of British stalwarts are all pretty good, particular Eric Portman as the stern police chief and Baker is a solid enough lead despite the fact he's rather angry and shouty in every scene.

Not only is THE MAN WHO FINALLY DIED the second movie in which Niall MacGinnis winds up with a gun drawn on a train during the climax following CURSE OF THE DEMON, but THE THIRD MAN has been knocked-off once again, and this time it's a pretty good effort as former German child now adult British citizen/jazz pianist Stanley Baker returns to Germany after getting a mysterious call about his father, who he thought was dead twenty-years ago, and is now dead again, only it happened a week earlier... And as this talky but effective thriller progresses, the dad, like Orson Welles's Harry Lime, could have been involved in some bad things, covered up by a doctor played by Baker's VIOLENT PLAYGROUND costar Peter Cushing (protecting Mai Zetterling, supposedly married to dad, and aptly directed by Hammer's Quentin Lawrence), while also helping gorgeous ingenue Georgina Ward, whose father was buried in the same grave that, well... There are too many twists to count or spoil, but Baker, donning Ray Charles-like sunglasses even indoors, goes from place to place in his usual strongarm, no-nonsense fashion, only a bit more vulnerable whilst constantly dogged by his year-later ZULU sergeant, Nigel Green as a cop, who winds up in just about as many mazy dead-ends in this page-turner of a B&W b-movie potboiler. And then some.