It never ceases to amaze me that certain classic movies are not readily available to view and that all manner of garbage gets DVD releases. This is a good case in point and is certainly one of German emigre Fritz Lang's best Hollywood movies. It opens in Nazi Germany where huntsman Walter Pidgeon (far far less wooden than he often seemed in his film roles) has Hitler in his rifle sights and pulls the trigger of the unloaded gun. Before he can reload and repeat the exercise he is apprehended and his argument that he was only intending to stalk his quarry rather than kill it bears no weight with his inquisitor George Sanders -- always an impeccable villain -- who wants him to sign a false confession that he was there at the British government's behest. So we follow Pidgeon's torture, supposed death, and escape back to England with Sanders' minions in pursuit. Foremost amongt these is the gaunt John Carradine who is only marginally less believably sinister.
Therein follows an intricate tale of cat and mouse in a Hollywood London that never was replete with swirling fog, chirpy pearly kings and queens, and an improbably Cockney-accented Joan Bennett as a "seamstress", i.e. prostitute. The film is based on the Geoffrey Household novel later re-made for TV under its original title of "Rogue Male" with Peter O'Toole in the lead. While I would choose the latter over Pidgeon any day of the week, I can still not dismiss the effectiveness and the thrills found in Lang's studio-bound version and can only wonder yet again why Fox have not re-released this gem.
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