Father Brown

The police find a man dressed as a priest with his hands in a safe. They arrest him but he turns out to be Father Brown (Alec Guinness) who was returning the money stolen by a parishioner. The church is sending the Holy Cross of Saint Augustine to the Eucharistic Congress in Rome. The police tell them that elusive thief Flambeau is after the priceless artifact like the many treasures he has stolen in the last 10 years. Nobody knows what the master of disguise actually looks like. Father Brown determines that the police would be easy targets for Flambeau and transports the Cross himself. Eventually he is alone with Flambeau as intended and he tries to reform him. Flambeau refuses and escapes with the Cross. Despite the disappointment, he tries to entice Flambeau again with the help of Lady Warren.

Alec Guinness is great as Father Brown. It's a great character and Guinness is magnificent playing him. It's a fun mystery for awhile until Flambeau is revealed. Then it repeats again and again for Father Brown. It's fun to watch him in a caper to catch Flambeau. It's less fun to watch him try to convert Flambeau. Guinness always tries to keep his character light and fun.

A cross is stolen from Father Brown's (Alec Guinness) church by master of disguise criminal genius Flambeau (Peter Finch) so amateur detective Brown seeks him out to try and get it back and save Flambeau's soul at the same time.

Jolly little piece of whimsical fluff from the Ealing school with Guinness perhaps a little more indulgent in his characterisation than usual. This doesn't distract though and it all makes for a pleasant enough bit of afternoon matinee viewing including a few solid laughs. Finch impresses as the worldly wise but rather sadly misguided thief with English stalwarts Sid James, Joan Greenwood and Bernard Lee providing solid support.

I'm old enough to have seen this film on its release in the cinemas, and, whilst it's not easy to think of a film these days being a success unless millions have been spent on it, this film hung on two superlative performances from Alec Guinness and Peter Finch and the screenplay was worth two of anything you'd hear today. So why, I ask, has it not been released on DVD for a new generation to enjoy? Is it thought too dated? Not exciting enough? Too cerebral? Not a bit of it. It's a thoroughly enjoyable film with moments of high tension and a supporting cast rich in character (including Bernard Lee who was the first M in the Bond films)

Father Brown is an unusual Priest. He tries to get people back on the right track that have sinned and gone a stray.

He does this by undoing the crimes they have committed like stealing. He will return the stolen items.

He has a Cross that is likely to be stolen by a crook no one can identify. Father Brown is out to find that crook and bring him back to Christ.

Some of the story takes place in church to me it is very inspirational. He explains what most people do not know is that he hears the confessions of a lot of different kinds of people and he wants them to repent and come back to God.

It is heart warming to hear Scripture and also the stories of the bad people he meets and then tells them they don't have to be the way they are.

This is one movie where they are not mocking Priest, Catholics or those who believe in God. Funny and inspirational.

You can see it on Youtube. Father Brown The Detective 1954 (Alec Guiness) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gqwXeHI85A

I had always wanted to catch this classic British film, but it hasn't been shown in my neck of the woods since the early 1980s! As a matter of fact, some time ago I purchased "The Complete Father Brown" volume - collecting all the stories of the sleuthing cleric by G.K. Chesterton, just because I didn't think I was ever going to watch it! Though the character has been featured in at least one other film (in 1934) and several TV adaptations (one starring Kenneth More and another, made in Italy, directed by Vittorio Cottafavi and featuring Renato Rascel), Hamer's version remains the most substantial outing of Chesterton's creation.

The film itself, featuring a superbly witty script and deft direction, is a thoroughly delightful and occasionally hilarious gem - made by and with several exponents of the famed Ealing style, it's admirably served by a splendid cast. Alec Guinness is at somewhere near his best in the title role (unassuming, accident-prone but uncommonly shrewd and entirely amiable, his influence on future Peter Sellers characterizations - such as the priest in HEAVENS ABOVE! (1963) and Inspector Clouseau - is very evident); Joan Greenwood is somewhat underused here, but she's quite good as an aristocratic widow and Father Brown's confidante; a young Peter Finch impresses as the gentleman thief Flambeau, engaged in a battle-of-wits with Guinness throughout in which the two clearly respect and admire one another - but the rogue is averse to the priest's attempts to redeem him! Other familiar - and welcome - British faces grace the supporting line-up: Bernard Lee as a cop; Sid James as a ne'er-do-well small-time crook; Cecil Parker as Guinness' flustered superior, a bishop; and Ernest Thesiger as a dotty ancient librarian who appears in only one scene, but it turns out to be one of the film's comic highlights. Other memorable moments involve the various disguises Flambeau adopts in his attempts to outwit Guinness, such as in the lengthy catacombs and auction sequences.

Despite Hamer's reputation, this particular film seems to have been somewhat neglected - or, at least, has had its importance downplayed - over the years; in my opinion, along with KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949; undeniably his masterpiece) and IT ALWAYS RAINS ON Sunday (1947; which I only first watched a couple of months back), it stands as the director's finest work. At the time, it was deemed worthy of representing Britain at that year's Venice Film Festival, where it competed against such cinematic heavyweights as Federico Fellini's LA STRADA, Elia Kazan's ON THE WATERFRONT, Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI, Kenji Mizoguchi's SANSHO THE BAILIFF and Luchino Visconti's SENSO - except that Renato Castellani's little-seen version of ROMEO AND JULIET (featuring Laurence Harvey) emerged the overall winner!!

FATHER BROWN was also Robert Hamer's second of four collaborations with star Alec Guinness: I own THE SCAPEGOAT (1959), an interesting film co-starring Bette Davis, on VHS and had watched it many years ago; however, I missed out on TO Paris, WITH LOVE (1954) - which, by all accounts, is a disappointing trifle and easily the least of their films together. A side-note regarding Guinness: according to the IMDb, he actually converted to Roman Catholicism soon after the release of FATHER BROWN!