The Long Dark Hall

The Long Dark Hall is a crime drama starring Rex Harrison and his real- life wife (at the time), Lilli Palmer, who in the film, play husband and wife, Arthur and Mary Groome.

This seems to be a story within a story as told by a newspaper reporter to a crime novelist. But, the internal story is the one that I focused on throughout the movie.

In this story, Arthur and Mary Groome appear to be a happily married couple who live in Richmond with two young daughters. However, when a London showgirl is found dead on a night that Arthur visited her—which he admitted to everyone that he often did--he is accused of her murder. Yet, he claimed he did not kill her, and his wife, Mary, totally believes him.

His accusation and trial for her murder is based on a ton of circumstantial evidence, including his knife at the scene, witnesses, and her blood on his suit (which he admits, he in the trial, that he burned because it couldn't be dry cleaned)....

Solid if not impressive light thriller about a man infatuated with a young actress whilst still married soon to be entombed in a vault of lies when the young girl turns up dead and murdered - not by his hand or so he says? Rex Harrison gives a subtly good performance as Arthur Groome - the man who loves his wife and children yet also "loves" the young murdered actress. The film chronicles how the pieces of that puzzle unravel and whether or not Groome or someone else is the actual murderer. As a mystery film The Long Dark Hall is effective and entertaining for the most part. Harrison is as ever affable and Lili Palmer, his real-life wife, plays his wife here. All of the British cast do workmanlike jobs with Anthony Dawson particularly being effective. Patricia Cutts plays a very lovely girl in her turn as the victim. I would agree that the ending is somewhat unsatisfying and predictable but not wholly bleak. Directors Anthony Bushell and editor Reginald Beck(also getting his one time directorial credit for this film)create some very nice work - particularly those shots of the long, dark hall. This film is not a big budget affair in any way but still makes for a relaxing, enjoyable time.

This is a pretty interesting mystery. It's not really suspenseful but it's done with style.

However, I wonder what purpose it was meant to serve for the public relations of its star Rex Harrison. His friend Carole Landis, a charming star of generally minor films, had killed herself a few years before this came out. As a result, his therefore rising box office appeal had plummeted. Indeed, the brilliant "Unfaithfully Yours" had the bad fortune to come out right after Ms. Landis had died. No one wanted to see Rex Harrison killing a woman over and over -- even if it was in his imagination. "Unfaithfully Yours" was not a success, despite director Preston Sturges's career as Hollywood (apparent) golden boy. Sturges really did not survive this failure commercially.

So, here we have a decent man accused of murdering a pretty young woman. Like the star himself, the character is married to (the very appealing) Lilli Palmer. I don't want to give away the plot. Let's just say that this is a movie that comes out against quick decisions in tabloid cases.

Can this have been a coincidence? Maybe it was. I don't know anything about its history. However, I sincerely doubt that it was.

A very fine actress was Lilli Palmer - sensitive, thoughtful, moving - and this picture gives us another reason to admire her skill. And anyone wishing to learn how to create a believable performance would do well to study her work and profit by bit. In THE LONG DARK HALL she brings great strength to her role as a wife who wants to believe in her husband, come what may.

THE LONG DARK HALL was produced by Rex Harrison himself. For the film he brought together a fine group of artists to help him make it, among them screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, whose long and distinguished record in the film world needs no introduction. He chose a top British cinematographer, Wilkie Cooper, to bring the proper film noir look and mood to the film and commissioned Benjamin Frankel to compose another of his fine scores. The cast is extremely good. One always marvels at the effortless perfection of the likes of Denis O'Dea, Brenda de Banzie and Raymond Huntley who have never, to my knowledge, ever given a bad performance. The villainy in the film was in the very capable hands of Anthony Dawson, whom many will remember as the paid murderer in Hitchcock's DIAL M FOR MURDER.

While the ending is cobbled together a shade too quickly the great fun I had watching this drama made up for any disappointment. After all, the ending was a logical one, even if it could have been handled with a bit more cinematic flair. All in all, a nice, atmospheric, well-made thriller.

Wow--talk about divergent reviews. Two apparently hated the film (giving it a score of 2) and two liked it very much (giving it a score of 7). I think my opinion is somewhat in the middle--though I think giving the film a 2 is awfully silly. It's NOT a bad film, though I would agree with goldbug-2 that the forensic work done by the police seems sloppy. In fact, up until late in the film, I could look past the problems with the knife and other evidence. However, the completely unbelievable ending and the major mistake in the film concerning the witness they could not locate made me mad--as it just looked sloppy and the film seemed to be wrapped up too quickly. Let me explain the problem with both. Rex Harrison's character insisted there was a witness that could place him at the restaurant and later you see this witness come to court but then walk away without giving evidence. How could this be? The film was told to an author by a newspaper man but how could the newspaper man tell that the witness DID come to court but then ran away without telling anyone--how could he have known this?! As for the ending, the film maintained a rather steady pace throughout but at the end, everything was basically described to the audience--neatly wrapping everything up but not even showing what they were describing! It was like they decided not to film the last 20 minutes of the movie and just sum it up in 5!! Sloppy indeed.

It's all rather sad, as up until then, the film was well written, acted and kept my attention. Sadly, I was anticipating giving the film a 7--but the sloppy ending really brought the film down to the level of mediocrity. Too bad.

By the way, I rarely directly complain about an other review, but the one reviewer that complained ad nauseum about the 1950s really needs to stick to the film itself and not give us a diatribe about sexism and repression. You can't so strongly attack one film because you have such strong contempt for the 1950s! Who cares what you think about the 1950s? While I do agree that Lilli Palmer played a woman with very low self-esteem (considering how much she excused her womanizing husband), such vehemence about the film is just bizarre. Her character might have justified giving the film a somewhat lower score, but not this low.