DVD reviews
Immortals
"... a thundering example of style over substance."
Midnight In Paris
“...a delightful tribute to nostalgia and romance.”
The Illusionist
“...a film that generally brings warm smiles rather than belly laughs...”
Treasure Guards
"A willing suspension of disbelief should get most viewers across the line."
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The Clouded Yellow (DVD)
Year: 1950
Rating: PG
Director: Ralph Thomas
Cast: Sonia Dresdel, Trevor Howard, Kenneth More, Jean Simmons
Release Date: April 13, 2011
Distributor: Shock
The Film: 3.5
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5“Intriguing, but disappointing.”
This 1951 thriller is more notable for its opening stages than its actual plot, allowing for the carefully-constructed melodrama of the First Act to descend to ‘lovers-on-the-run' cliché by the film's resolution.
Brief Encounter's Trevor Howard is David Somers, a former superspy who is fired after a botch-up in the field. He gets a job cataloguing butterflies for the Fenton family, which includes the beautiful niece Sophie Malraux (Simmons). When Sophie comes under suspicion for the murder of her aunt's lover, she and David go on the run in London.
Surprisingly, this thriller is more intriguing in its initial stages, in which the first act sets up a strange, Gothic melodramatic tone. Whereas other on-the-run thrillers - such as Hitchcock's The 39 Steps - are much more efficient in their set-ups, The Clouded Yellow deepens its characters and their dilemmas before their call to adventure.
However, such a set-up also means - no matter how well constructed and directed the rest of the film is - The Clouded Yellow cannot quite match the Rebecca-like intensity of the opening. The film is well into the second act when the film ultimately becomes a thriller, meaning that the actual plot of the film seems like more of a postscript than the central dilemma of the film. Intriguing, but disappointing.
