Cuatro malditos

William Sylvester stars as Philip Vickers, a man who suddenly returns home after being considered dead for four years. Seems he was on a fishing trip in Portugal of all places and disappeared after going ashore. His memory of events is getting drunk, mugged and imprisoned.

His wife (Paulette Goddard) is having a big party and his three cronies are all in attendance. But one of the cronies is killed that very night. Who did it? All evidence points to Vickers.

When a local detective (Russell Napier) arrives on the scene he's convinced that Vickers is the killer but the wife and pal Bill Saul (Paul Carpenter) keep doing suspicious things. Then there's that creepy Joan (Alvys Maben) lurking in the background.

After another murder, things start getting serious.

Low-budget thrillers has some good points but the many negatives bring it down. The sets are incredibly ugly, and then there's that 50s space-age metal kitchen that keeps shape shifting. Goddard (about 44 at the time) is badly costumed and lit. But the story is pretty good.

Goddard, despite star billing, has little to do. Sylvester and Carpenter are good, and Maben is a scene stealer. Napier is also good as the detective. Don't by fooled by George Sanders' listing. He's not in the film, and the novel her wrote was actually ghost-written by someone else.

English suspense film with a very solid British cast, along with lone American Paulette Goddard. Sylvester, Maben, and Napier are all quite good, but it's Goddard who doesn't quite fill her characters larger than life shoes. She plays Angie, a woman all the men in the film seem to love and adore, as well as Maben's Joan, who is completely devoted to Angie. Goddard is fine but is unable to create a character of great wit, dynamism, beauty, or uniqueness to make such admiration from everyone even remotely plausible. This unfortunately undercuts large parts of the story. The direction is also a bit pedestrian and lacks vision. Despite the many flaws and weaknesses, The Unholy Four is not without suspense was still mildly entertaining.

I am massively behind with the "House of Hammer" podcast - months behind, but I'm still trying to catch up whenever I can and with the spirit I watched "A Stranger Came Home", or "The Unholy Four" if you prefer. It's a better premise for a movie, than in actual execution.

Four years after disappearing on a Portuguese trip, with his wife and three friends, Phillip Vickers (William Sylvester) suddenly reappears at his estate. Vickers is suspicious of his wife Angie (Paulette Goddard) as well as Job Crandall (Patrick Holt), Bill Saul (Paul Carpenter) and Harry Bryce, who are all attending a party that very night, so keeps what little he remembers about the disappearance to himself. Vickers becomes a suspect though when Bryce turns up dead, the morning after his return.

Again, the ideas of this noiry thriller are perhaps more interesting that what is ultimately provided. Part of the problem is perhaps that Vickers keeps what he's thinking to himself most of the time, especially when it comes to answering the question the other characters keep asking him "where have you been?" The murder on his first night back then leads to Russell Napier joining the film as Inspector Treheme. He joins a long line of . . . Unconventional police detectives in Hammer films, who seems to believe that Vickers did it, but not enough to take him in for questioning. The films principle failing is that, despite being just 80 minutes, it's not interesting enough to fill that time with anything other than the roundabout conversations and intimated accusations.

Performances are OK, Paulette Goddard is, as you might imagine, a class above the rest, even William Sylvester, who would be prominent in "2001. A Space Odyssey" a decade or so later. The main Hammer links are behind the camera this time, with Terence Fisher directing, but not much in the way of returning stars this time.

I say again, the premise of the film is actually reasonable interesting, but the execution is poor and the film is dull.

Most of the other reviews here rate this rather low, and say it's a poor example of film noir. Well I agree, it isn't great film noir. But it IS a very good mystery film. It's based on the novel "Stranger At Home" by George Sanders, which was actually ghost-written by acclaimed author Leigh Brackett. And the film is an amazingly faithful adaptation of the book.

The main character was probably written with Sanders in mind, but William Sylvester (best known for "2001: A Space Odyssey") is excellent in the role of the stranger who came home. This is not a must-see film, but definitely worth checking out if you have the opportunity.

I watched "The Unholy Four" (the US title) because it stars Paulette Goddard. She was absolutely brilliant in 'Modern Times" (1936) and a few other films. Unfortunately, this is not one of them.

This is one of those the-butler-did-it-in-the-parlor-with-a-candlestick high society dramas that might actually be improved if the dialog were just a radio play. Then you would have to fill in the blanks with your imagination instead of being subjected to really uninteresting visuals.

The film begins with a somewhat high-concept premise typical of the time. A man (William Sylvester) returns to a fancy mansion (yes, it's that kind of film, all drawing-room talk and men dressed in tuxedos) coincidentally on the night of a big party where everyone essential to the plot is conveniently present. People who knew him tend to faint (very unconvincingly, Paulette I'm looking at you) when they see him, but he transitions back into his old life at warp speed. Turns out (this takes an ungodly long time to be revealed) he was lost at sea while fishing with "friends." Apparently, someone hit him on the head to help matters (and this is never shown and must be assumed from random clues). However, he survived as an amnesiac for three or four years (the script is a little hazy on precise details, apparently he lost his memory for three years but was gone for four for some reason). Sure, happens all the time.

After a fairly interesting start, the film quickly devolves into a standard "who tried to kill him" scenario, with additional dead bodies popping up to liven the proceedings. I'll give the author (not George Sanders) credit, it dishes out its share of red herrings, though you won't believe any of them. The last fifteen minutes is actually fairly good, with a suspenseful and satisfying conclusion.

The problem is the dreary hour it takes to get to that conclusion. Although Goddard gets prominent billing as the "star" (hey, can we make the titles any bigger?) the story actually revolves around the guy who suddenly shows back home to throw a spanner in the works. Goddard's character just does standard "surprised but then loyal wifey" stuff. Sylvester is given little to work with, and he dutifully does little with it (his hair stylist should have gotten the billing, not him).

People love to say that British actors are always phenomenal, but I didn't see any of that. Sylvester basically sleepwalks through the film until the climax, but it's not really his fault - he's given little to work with. The others are just random asteroids floating around him. They do say their lines with great enunciation, however.

The real problem with the film is that Goddard doesn't even show up until 13 minutes in, and after that she also is given little to do. Instead, we get repeated snarky interludes between Sylvester's character and his colorless former best buds. He has the typical "red herring" antisocial attitude of someone who's a little too obvious as the "bad guy." You know right from the start didn't do what others think he did (he becomes a suspect of nefarious doings himself) because he tries too damn hard to make himself look suspicious. In short, Goddard looks pedestrian, the other women look dull and uninteresting, the men walk around saying pompous things with snide inflections.... quite simply, nothing interesting happens.

Charles Napier is the only remotely believable character as the policeman investigating the entire situation, but his character only appears now and then and strangely seems only vaguely interested in the reasons behind Sylvester's absence for four years. Paul Carpenter as one of the suspects helps at times but certainly can't carry the picture.

I found the direction pedestrian, the acting rote, the wardrobes blah (especially Goddard's), and the setting uninteresting. Everyone seems determined to show as little real emotion as possible, doling it out like water when a group is stranded in the desert. The ending is good, but not enough to warrant sticking through this.

It's okay to have on in the background while you're doing something else. Listen in, maybe glance at the screen when Paulette is talking, and so on. Just don't expect much. Tune in for that ending, and pat yourself on the back for figuring it all out halfway through.