Scarlet Thread

Well you could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw that this one was without 5 votes at the time of comment. I caught it on UK TV (BBC2) last night as part of a season that they are doing of great British films.

Basically the film is about an upper class jewel thief Marcon and the oikish pickpocket Freddie who becomes his protégé. Early on in the movie Freddie saves Marcon's life. After this and clearly against his better judgement Marcon feels a sort of responsibility for Freddie and decides to do a job with him. Freddie is mercurial, and unlike the blue-blood Marcon does not know when the boat should not be rocked. He's got a caveman type thang for the ladies and is not averse to the odd tantrum.

They commit a bungled jewel heist in Cambridge and have to make off on foot. They run into one of the colleges and hide in the garden of the Master's lodge. They talk their way into staying the night with Josephine, the Master's daughter who is not aware that anything is afoot. Josephine is the most interesting character, a lady whom the audience of the time would certainly have identified with. She has grown weary of the softly-dripping peace of Cambridge and her bespectacled don suitor. She's looking for a more racy life, she's bought a ticket on the ride and wants her money's worth so to speak. Cue Freddy who moves through the gears in no time impressing her with his cinema-learnt American accent and lingo.

Josephine as played by Kathleen Byron is what we in Britain would call a fox. Her skin is like alabaster and her bosom full and on permanent display. There is not even the mark of a scowl on her face, she's a classy lady. It is after her that the movie is titled, quoting from the Song of Solomon 4:3 "Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, And thy mouth is comely." She comes by the end of the movie to realise that flings with Freddies are not quite all they're cracked up to be. But I won't spoil that for you.

There is in this film some of the raciest innuendo that I've ever seen even in modern movies, and it's all quite carefully disguised. That for me was the added value. There is also a quite noirish sentiment, education is shown off as the luxuriant pursuit of the fop. If this had been an American-made film it would certainly be called noir. It's a very enjoyable little film, not quite as coherent or stylised as the great movies, but a high-calibre matinée that one can't quite fail to enjoy. 8/10

What distinguishes this crime film from many of its contemporaries is not so much the plot, though the dialogue is above average, but the degree of authenticity its characters have and the location shooting in Cambridge and the West End of London.

Laurence Harvey's cheap aggressive spiv, complete with trilby and a phony accent, modelling himself on an American gangster, or at least the Hollywood version of one, had his real life counterparts, as court cases of the period show. One clever scene is set in a seedy amusement arcade as Harvey's womanising Freddie tries to pick up a low class tart (Dora Bryan) much to the disapproval of Sydney Tafler's educated, rather aloof, possibly gay character Marcon (alias Bellingham). There's also a vague resemblance at first to the relationship between Terry and Arthur in MINDER; Tafler is excellent throughout. We meet the magnetic Kathleen Byron's Josephine just before the botched smash and grab resulting in murder and soon learn of her anxiety at the prospect of being stifled amid the tranquil, cloistered "backwater" of her university surroundings with her suitor, staid academic Arthur Hill. Byron was one of the few British actresses of the day whose characters were clearly made of flesh and blood, and here the refined Josephine is sufficiently attracted to the working class, pseudo American Freddie, as to be quite ready to jump straight into bed with him, an unusual development for a film of the time. There's some tension and moments of dry humour, particularly involving Josephine's aunt Eleanor (Renee Kelly). But the film's main interest in the later stages lies in the relationship between the three leading characters, as it works out against the university background.

Sadly, the recent DVD release confirms that the film has only survived in a mutilated form, with minutes missing toward the end, leaving the eventual fate of Freddie, Marcon and accomplice Harry Fowler unclear.

Laurence Harvey tries to lift Sidney Tafler's wallet. Tafler calls him out on it, but does not call the nearby police. Instead, he takes him home, gives him dinner, and tells him that when he has a job for him, he'll send for him. The job is a smash-and-grab on a jeweler's window in Cambridge. Harvey shoots a man who tries to interfere, a crowd gets between them and their getaway car, which drives off. The men outrace the crowd and take refuge in the University, where they impose, due to Tafler's having gone to Trinity, on Kathleen Byron, whose father has gone to a meeting in London.

Lewis Gilbert does a nice job directing his first feature. After a look at the town and the university grounds, it turns into a nice study in Tafler's and Harvey's minds. Harvey is a punk, exhibiting the craziness he would use to advantage in future movies. There's also a nice bit of suspense in the situation, with the police looking for them with poor descriptions, and the fate of the shot man. There is a touch too much in the way of coincidence in the second half of the movie, but it's tightly plotted and it holds together well while watching it.

This film has just been shown as part of the "British films forever" season on BBC2.The film was made by Butchers Films(1910-1980)which made films for the bottom half of double bills.The film stars Sydney Tafler,the brother in law of that very versatile director Lewis Gilbert.Also starring is a very young Laurence Harvey ,before he adopted the "arent i beautiful"mannerisms of his later career,There are some very interesting location shots of the West End of London,including a number of cinema exteriors and also of Cambridge.The plot is a typical thriller of its times and has more holes in its plot than you would find in a piece of Swiss cheese.There is however one very daring scene for its time.Kathleen Byron plays the frustrated girlfriend of a don.She is immediately attracted to Harvey.They have a dance then a very sensual kiss and there is a clear indication that he can have his wicked way with her when mum has gone to sleep.To ensure an early night for mum she is given a sleeping pill but fate intervenes.Anyway to buffs of British cinema it is worth a watch.

Kathleen Byron was one of the most fascinating actresses of the noir period, while she only came to her rights under the direction of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. She did make a number of other thrillers besides the Archers productions, and this was one of her best. She is confronted here by Laurence Harvey as a very young man in one of his earliest roles, acting a nervous young amateur gangster with a gun, which of course he uses only for blunders, but his performance as this green hoodlum totally unsure of himself except for his interest and relations with dames is just perfect. This was Lewis Gilbert's first film, and it is startlingly Hitchcockian. The pastoral idylls of Cambridge with its ancient colleges and almost equally ancient professors are made the background of a shockingly grim drama of a burglary going wrong involving the accidental murder of an old man, who proves to be the last man the murderer would have liked to have killed. Sydney Tafler is the other villain, who has forced Harvey into his service for a professional job, in no way alerted by the fact that Harvey is such an unreliable amateur. Of course, it can only go from bad to worse, but there are many great moments of sustained suspense, and the fireworks in the end for the celebration of a centenary of a college is the perfect background for the final escape by the Ghost's Gallery, where for a striking effect the ghost actually appears of a man believed dead.